Calm the F down already...
If a girl can't get something off her chest on her own blog, where can she say what's really on her mind? It's not like many people read this anyway...
It's flu season, and here in Canada the world and its ill-informed uncle are up in arms about the H1N1 vaccine. Having to listen to people cite nonsense, pseudoscience, and Jenny McCarthy during the course of a regular day is bad enough. Add in a healthy dose of fear mongering by mainstream and off-beat media alike, and you have yourself one massive misinformation clusterf*ck.
You know, it's always struck me as ironic that you don't need an advanced degree to raise children, but you do to become a respected healthcare professional. I have but a mere honours degree in the area, and do not profess to be any sort of an expert. But the large teams of people who develop, test, and assess the efficacy and risk of vaccines have basically never left academia. They have spent the majority of their adult lives bettering themselves through education. And yet we (actually, you), the unwashed masses, would apparently rather listen to the star of Dumb and Dumber than trust actual scientists to do their jobs.
Now, knowing what little I do about viruses and epidemiology, I feel I can safely say this: H1N1 is not going to kill us all. It's likely to kill very few of us. But it IS going to make many of those of us who have not been vaccinated extremely, utterly miserable for at least a week. Oddly enough, flu victims tend not to be very productive, and also tend to unecessarily clot our emergency rooms. For those of you smelling a Zombie virus conspiracy behind our Government's interest in getting as many Canadians vaccinated as possible, consider this your Occam's razor: sick people cost money. We are teetering on the edge of the Niagara Falls of a financial sh*t creek. One false move, i.e., tens of thousands of people not showing up for work, and we can say goodbye to economic recovery before next Christmas. The viability of the universal FREE healthcare system that we're so proud of north of the 49th depends heavily on low-cost preventative medicine. It's cheaper to prevent the flu than to treat it.
I don't care if you don't want to get vaccinated, or don't want your kids to get vaccinated. It's your choice. It's not a mandatory program. But please, for the love of the few things I actually find sacred in this world (the scientific method and rational thought), please make it a properly informed choice and not a gut reaction based on nonsense, pandering, and ill-conceived conspiracy theories about modern medicine or "big Pharma". Keep your crazy to yourself, shut up, and just start stocking up on chicken soup. Oh, and cover your mouth when you cough.
Comments
and wash your fricken' hands for cris-sakes!!!!!!
Posted by: Tim at October 30, 2009 02:25 AM
....with soap!!!
Posted by: Tim at October 30, 2009 02:25 AM
No kidding. I don't get it at all. The science is pretty clear.
And even if you don't care about your own, your family's, your coworkers', friends' or anyone else's health there is sound economic reason for getting the vaccine. I've already spent almost a week out of work with what I think was the seasonal flu. I don't need to lose that kind of productivity again (personal or professional) for another week.
Posted by: heather at November 1, 2009 11:44 AM