On Thursday I got my shot against the Swine Flu. Some moths ago, I was thinking that I wouldn’t bother – because I haven’t had a cold in 1½ years – but then I gave it a second thinking over. With 20% of my lungs gone and having had pneumonia twice (before I quit smoking in July 2007) I figured that maybe this was a good idea. I do meet hundreds of children every day and even if I wouldn’t get severely ill myself, I could certainly spread the disease to others. During the last few weeks I’ve followed the stories in media about the vaccinations, about people who got/didn’t get the shot and became ill, any and all side effects, line-ups and people complaining.
Here’s a sampling of what I’ve heard/read/seen…
This county has a population of less than 3500 and only one health care clinic – despite that, there were people complaining about the “horrendous line-up” on Thursday. Say what? This was the second day for risk groups getting their shot – how many could there actually have been there?
Some time ago it was disclosed that the vaccine contains Mercury (micrograms as a preservative in each dose) which made a lot of people decide to not get inoculated. Right. The same people will eat fish from the Gulf of Bothnia without even thinking about the levels of Mercury in that fish. Go figure.
There is a story going around here, that there is a turbo-action added to the vaccine. As the story goes, the same thing was done to a vaccine given to soldiers going to Iraq and there is now talk that this is what causes the Iraq Syndrome – not actually being deployed there. (My apologies to American readers – I may not have all of the facts correct here, I’m just relating what I’ve heard.)
People my age (57) and older feel that they don’t need to take the shot since they were exposed to the flu during the 50’s and 60’s… Correct – excepting the fact that we were a lot younger then…
A physician who looks after one of our better hockey teams gave all of the players the vaccine ahead of time. He claimed they were all in a risk group since they meet players from other cities on a regular basis…
People who have planned holidays in Thailand over Christmas can’t understand why they can’t get inoculated before Mildred, 72 years old with asthma and a heart condition….








