Thursday, October 15, 2009

Hey...wait a minute ...

This whole Swine Flu thing is starting to smell stupid, presuming stupid has a smell.

We get this late Tuesday:  Fox News White House correspondent Major Garrett is the latest newser to contract H1N1 swine flu, according to Mediaite. In the past month, MSNBC's Rachel Maddow, CNN's Sanjay Gupta, and (potentially) CBS' Harry Smith all came down with it. Last week, he tweeted, "Hey, Tweeps! Not on vacation. Not in witness protection (they say my request is 'pending'). Seriously, been down w/ flu. Back 2 WH Monday."

Then I hear that both of our local grandkids have "The Swine", as the kids are calling it.  But they're in and out of any illness in three days, and the doc who tested them says it may or may not have been H1N1, since the testing protocol is only 50% accurate. Might have just been a cold, according to Doc.  No one in our local family has done the vaccine.  I do have one friend who's been knocked out by...something, as yet unidentified.

This is all very strange, especially with the recent advice that youngsters need two H1N1 vaccine shots to be fully protected.  Why is that, exactly?  Remember, I was a family-raisin' kinda guy back in 1976, the last time this brand of flu passed through.  I saw what happened.  None of my family had vaccine shots back then, either, and none of us got sick.

I refer you to Theodore Sturgeon's story The Comedian's Children. You'll need a free Google account to read it, and it would be worth your while to sign up.

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