To the editor:

In a recent Facebook comment posted after an event at Bristol Health to recognize health care workers for their heroic efforts during the pandemic, Mayor Jeffrey Caggiano falsely declared that the COVID-19 pandemic is now an endemic.

Although he calls himself a scientist because he has a Bachelor of Science degree in biology and has worked in the biotech field, that hardly makes him an expert in infectious diseases.

Would anyone, at least in their right mind, go to him for a medical diagnosis?

Why would he say something so irresponsible?

It could be just plain political pandering to the anti-vaccination crowd, but it also could be his continuing attachment to his former employer.

The mayor said he severed his employment at Adaptive Biotechnologies Corporation, yet on his LinkedIn account, in which he gives his occupation as mayor of Bristol, he is very much involved in promoting the company.

He has “reshared” at least two posts in the last month from this former employer about articles explaining the role of “Killer T-Cells” in fighting COVID, particularly the Omicron variant.

These articles which are full of scientific language are meant to be read by scientists, not the average person.

On its website, Adaptive Biotechnologies says their business is “immune medicine” which they describe as the “harnessing a person’s adaptive immune system to unleash its power as a natural diagnostic and therapeutic tool to propel a paradigm shift in medicine.”

To raise money for its long-term goals, Adaptive Biotechnologies Corp., according to Market Watch on June 27, 2019, went public and sold 15 million shares which raised at least $300 million.

According to a US Security & Exchange Commission filing in June of 2019, an employee stock purchase plan was established.

In earlier business transactions, Market Watch reported that in 2017 Adaptive Biotechnologies entered in to a seven-year partnership deal with Microsoft in which Microsoft purchased shares of the company’s F-1 convertible preferred stock and in 2018 entered in to a $300 million dollar partnership with Genentech, a biotechnology company.

A lot of money is to be made for stockholders and partners if Adaptive Biotechnologies is successful in its “immune medicine” development–money that will be made when COVID eventually does become an endemic.

Mayor Caggiano has made it known he took a big pay cut to be mayor when he severed his employment with his former employer, therefore, his continuing involvement in its business growth using the influence of his office on a social media site targeted to business professionals, especially when it concerns COVID, has, at the very least, an appearance of a conflict of interest and does nothing to alleviate the perception of his critics that he is not fully engaged in his job as mayor.

Richard Kriscenski

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