[lit-ideas] Re: flu vaccine

  • From: Robert.Paul@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Robert Paul)
  • To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: 27 Oct 2004 18:41:11 PDT

Paul Stone writes:

>I never said that it IS self-indulgent for people who _need_ to get the vaccine
to get it. I tried to set out in my last email that the 'problem' with this year
is not just that there is a severe shortage of flu shots, it's that the
inoculations were progressing as normal (i.e. millions of people getting them --
and desiring them -- who DON'T need them) and so this exacerbated an already bad
situation with the people who really need them<

I don't know where the notion that 'millions of people...[who don't need flu
shots] are getting them' comes from. That certainly hasn't been reported locally
ornationally (although Marlena did suggest that her library staff didn't want to
be making decisions about who did and didn't need innoculation and was giving
everyone a pass). In Oregon there's no flu vaccine for anybody, let alone those
who are in the 'at risk' category. The lines shown on TV and reported in the
press are made up of aged folk, some in wheelchairs, most assisted by abler
persons. The innoculation of people who fall outside the guidelines didn't
create the present US flu vaccine shortage.

And later:

>They are not being altruistic, whining about how their grandmothers and kids
can't get it.<

Who are 'they'? I guess I'm asking which planet's newspapers you read.

Yet further:

>It's like air bags, car safety, seatbelts etc. How about learning how to
fucking drive so that you don't smash into anything? How about more difficult
driving tests? How about making sure that people who are not extremely competent
drivers DON'T DRIVE?<

'It's like'? I have a hard time seeing how it is. It seems odd to say that
because most accidents are caused by people who don't know how to fucking drive,
there is no need for seatbelts and airbags in general (if that _is_ what's being
said). Although there are lethal one car accidents, I think there are far more
multiple car accidents, and it takes only one incompetent driver to ruin your
day, however competent you may be. Are you saying that if the Kingdom of God on
earth resulted in only 'competent' drivers there'd be no need for safety devices
on cars? 

I'm waiting for the Paul Stone isolation-satisfaction unit, which is modeled on
early brain-in-a-vat technology, to come on the market. When it's available it
will be so attractive that nobody will want to leave its cozy confines and
expose themselves to germy people and Massachusetts drivers. 

Robert Paul
Reed College
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