Shasta County’s Proposed New Public Health Officer Is A Family Medicine Doctor Who Actively Opposed State COVID-19 Mandates
If appointed to the position next week, Dr. James Mu will serve as the county’s leading public health authority. Board members secured their ability to appoint a public health officer without public health education or experience by voting to change credentialing requirements for the position in June.
On Tuesday, October 17, 2023 the Shasta County Board of Supervisors will vote on whether or not to approve family medicine doctor James Mu, M.D. to the role of Shasta County Health Officer. The county has been without a health officer for 17 months.
The board’s staff reports says that Dr. Mu is a local physician who has operated a private practice in Shasta County for approximately 30 years. He obtained his medical degree at the Medical College of Wisconsin and his Family Medicine Residency training at the Mercy Medical Center.
Dr. Mu is eligible for the position despite his lack of public health credentials because of the Board’s recent vote to reduce the minimum qualifications needed for the County’s top medical position to eliminate the need for any public health experience.
According to the job description Shasta County’s public health officer maintains the “primary responsibility for the enforcement of public health laws in both the incorporated and unincorporated areas of the County.”
A simple majority vote of the Shasta County Board is sufficient to place Dr. Mu in the position at a salary of $18,522 per month. The proposed employment agreement specifies a work action plan that will require Dr. Mu to obtain board certification within two years. He is not currently board certified, which is not a requirement in the field of family medicine. He must provide proof of that certification to the HHSA Director once it is obtained. He may also obtain a Master’s degree from an accredited school of public health, which the county will reimburse him for if he chooses to do so.
The local health officer, the county’s staff report indicates, “is required to monitor and address contributing factors impacting population health outcomes. They are also responsible for preventing the spread of contagious, infectious, or communicable diseases, to order quarantine when necessary, and enforce public health orders and ordinances of the board of supervisors, and other public health regulations and statues required by state and/or federal law, among other duties.”
As the head of public health, the public health officer also supports the development of systems and policies that increase community health including proper nutrition and physical activity, worksite wellness and educational attainment. The public health department includes comprehensive perinatal services, substance overdose prevention, water testing, and perinatal services among many other services.
A section of the proposed contract between Shasta County’s Board of Supervisors and Dr. James Mu.
The county has been without a health officer for the last 17 months after the county board fired former health officer Dr. Karen Ramstrom without cause in May 2022. No official reason was given for Dr. Ramstrom’s firing, but she was widely criticized by vocal members of the community, including some current board members, for following state law instead of resisting or speaking out against public health guidelines issued during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Dr. James Mu was one of a collaboration of 44 local doctors who organized to vocally oppose state mandates for COVID-19 vaccination. The doctors, including Mu also opposed widely recommended protocols for both COVID-19 testing and treatment.
In January of 2022, Dr. Mu and others in the collaboration held a COVID-19 forum that purported to offer “non-political, evidence-based, medical information.” Experts at the forum endorsed a provider declaration that included opposition to all mandated COVID-19 vaccines, including for health workers. They also recommended a COVID-19 survival kit that included vitamins and minerals, mouthwash and nasal iodine.
Many of the positions held by Dr. Mu and the dozens of other local doctors in the collaboration were opposed at the time in an official letter sent by staff from Dignity Health/Mercy Medical Center, Shasta Regional Medical Center, Shasta Community Health Center, Hill Country Health and Wellness Center and the Redding Rancheria.
Officials used the letter to state that Dr. Mu and others in the collaboration were espousing medical views that “do not represent the vast majority of over 400 physicians practicing in Shasta County . . . . (including) medical or health care organizations, clinics or hospitals.”
This is a developing story.
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Didn’t the results, of vaccines not protecting one from getting Covid-19 and proof masks didn’t stop you from getting Covid-19, prove Dr.Mu’s views to be correct? Rather than a parriah doesn’t this vindicate him?
The Board could not have picked a more dedicated doctor. Dedicated to his family and to his patients. He is Kind, friendly and listens. This is experience talking.
Vaccines are great and I’ve gotten all the covid shots available so far.
It seems pretty obvious that vaccine mandates were a very toxic idea that provoked serious public backlash. The declaration seems very sensible.
While the current majority of our county Supervisors continue to believe and promote (legally found) FALSE claims regarding our national election process, they are further decreasing the respect, livability, and wellness of our community by naming an unqualified doctor, who does not value the health of the public, to our county’s highest public health position.
Information around the COVID-19 virus itself remains ever changing, due to the revolving door of new variants. The basic steps communities could take, however, to stop the spread of a previously unidentified deadly respiratory disease in 2020, were steadfast; wear a high filtration mask to cover your nose and mouth, wash your hands frequently, and limit contact with others- especially large gatherings. Our state and elected leaders correctly implemented conservative public health measures in an effort to preserve the health and safety of our families and communities in early 2020. They protected constituents by using the safest proven interventions known to limit the spread of respiratory disease. The Pandemic was an historic global event with inevitable economic consequences, but I hope we’d all agree that the safety and health of our community members is priceless.
Enter Dr. Mu with his supplements, iodine, and unfound treatments… Could his influence be one of the reasons why Shasta County, when compared to similarly sized Butte County, has lost over 180 more citizens, with 687 deaths versus 503, respectively, to COVID-19?(usafacts.org, U.S.Census Bureau) His VOCAL opposition to common sense infection control methods and peer-reviewed scientific treatment marks him as an ineffective, and frankly dangerous, public health officer for Shasta County.