Under The Influenza

The shortage and rationing of flu shots this season certainly took me by surprise. I have gotten a flu shot every year since 1999, because the last year I didn't get it, well, I got the flu! The director of the Center for Disease Conrtol, Dr. Julie Gerberding (who sort of reminds me of actress Susan Sullivan somehow) went on television news shows and asked for voluntary abstention from getting a flu shot so that preschool children, the elderly, pregnant women, and those with chronic health problems could receive it. Many states and municipalities, though, wisely mistrusting those who need a shot less and expecting them not to step aside and let others go first, are already rationing distribution of the vaccine on their own.

So how did we get into this mess? How did we come to rely on a single British factory to make flu vaccines for us (didn't we declare our independence from Britain some two centuries ago?), only to see that factory contaminate half its U.S.-bound shipment? Why don't we make it here? Four words - no money in it. The flu vaccine market is unpredictable, due to the changing nature of the virus year by year. Talk about being penny wise and pound foolish - risking the health of the nation by avoiding the cost of producing a flu vaccine at home! :-O

So I won't get a shot this year. I will, however, probably get the flu. :-(