Consider dementia in sentencing
In response to your commentary “Stop incarcerating people with Alzheimer’s” (Sept. 6), I cried.
My husband was a Navy pilot for 24½ years, serving three tours in the Vietnam War, going up into the air battles every other day. He was eventually diagnosed with PTSD and given 100% disability with the VA. I was told that his years of untreated PTSD most likely contributed to the brain damage he suffered.
In 2009, I began noticing irregularities in my husband’s thought processes.
In 2016, I asked my husband to read a book to our 6-year-old granddaughter. Later that day, my granddaughter said that grandpa touched her “privates” over her clothing.
At UF Health, a brain MRI showed atrophy of the brain cells in his frontal lobe. I was told that judgment would be a problem for him, but it was too late for me to hear that.
Eventually my husband was diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia (FTD), a disease where over a third of patients have committed a crime, primarily because judgment is often the first part of the frontal lobe to be damaged. The prosecutor and my husband’s defense attorney told me that Florida statutes did not allow the courts to consider dementia. He spent 24 months in prison. I sought out inmates to protect him.
I was told by attorneys, a prosecutor, probation, registration and FDLE agents that Florida statute does not allow for dementia to be considered. It never was.
Sarah Fiebig Gainesville
Will helpful road markings go, too?
Here’s a thought. The other day passing through Jacksonville on the interstate, I noted that certain intersections of interstate roads (i.e., I-95, I-10, I-295) had interstate emblems painted on the pavement to help guide motorists to their proper route. Given Gov. Ron DeSantis’ concern with driver confusion due to roadway art, shouldn’t these be removed as well?
Robert Day Orlando
Infighting is dooming U.S.
On June 4, 1961, our then President John F. Kennedy had a meeting with Nikita Khrushchev of Russia in Vienna. Khrushchev said that Russia could take America without firing a shot because “we will destroy you from within.” Reading about all the dissension in our country and the infighting of the Democratic and Republican party, I am concerned that we do not let this prediction by Khrushchev come to pass. Let us get back to the unity we had in the past. As Kennedy said, “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.”
Ingrid Bryant Oviedo
On vaccines, trust the science
Getting vaccinated is the definition of patriotism — a willingness to be “we the people,” rather than, “It’s all about me.” With vaccines in general, and for school attendance specifically, there are only two questions: Are vaccines legit? If so, who decides policy?
I have a very general understanding of DNA and can identify a helix in a color photo, yet the notion that mRNA can “teach” cells to fight disease sounds like science fiction. But I defer to the scientists, just as my parents did when they gave me a pink sugar cube to ward off polio, parents who understood the disease. The CDC has a complicated approval process for vaccines, designed to nix one faster than approve it; science has proven right many times.
Who gets to decide policy? As patriotic Americans, we have an individual duty to make the U.S. and world safer for the least among us. We should push for vaccinations even if the government turns against us. There are legit reasons not to get a child vaccinated, including most notably religion, but keeping the nation healthy is a “we the people” thing to do.
Trust the CDC scientists who recently quit in principle — not their non-scientist boss who is chasing a wacky conspiracy theory into the ground.
Kerry Smith Winter Springs
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