Mrs L and I have just received notification (along with vouchers) of the local swine flu inoculation arrangements. I was aware that the French government had gone a little overboard on this one, having swallowed the WHO’s “we’re all gonna die!” pandemic scare-mongering hook, line, sinker, rod and forearm. So much so, that they have a surplus of vaccine and are trying to flog it to anyone daft enough to take it.
Despite the professional scare mongers’ best efforts, there has not been a pandemic, just as there was no bird flu pandemic and just as we didn’t all drop dead from SARS.
The French people, so far as I can ascertain, are not rushing to get themselves inoculated despite a recent upsurge in vaccinations. That said, there is little evidence one way or another on this one – plenty of alarming conspiracy theories, but precious few actual facts about take up and side effects. And, crucially, whether there are really plans to make inoculation compulsory. The notification I have simply tells me how to get the vaccination and where – along with dire warnings about the disease itself and how desperately important it is to have the jab.
So, will Mrs L and I be dutifully attending the vaccination centre in Lodève? Well, look at it this way; while I have no beef with the principle of vaccination per se, this is flu we are talking about, not smallpox. I’ve had the flu a few times during my life and when I get it, I go to bed, drink plenty of fluids, take paracetamol and wait for it to pass. Mrs L and I are both in rude health. Neither of us is in a high risk group (old, infirm or very young, for example) and therefore are unlikely to die as a consequence of catching this variation of the virus. Combine that with the little matter of this particular vaccine having been rushed through without the usual protracted testing regime, I think you will be able to make an educated guess on that one.
No, there hasn’t been a pandemic, but the manufacturers of Tamiflu (former CEO Donald Rumsfeld) have successfully offloaded huge stocks of it which were nearing their use-by date onto the US and other governments and are laughing all the way to their dodgy Wall Street bankers.
Hmmm, still not quite clear where you stand. What happened to Part 2 of this series, which briefly flashed up in my ‘blogroll? Is that where you give us the answer?
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There was no part 2. Blogjet posted the same article twice for some reason.
Where do I stand? This is an entirely unnecessary over-reaction to a non problem that has been hyped up by the WHO and lackeys such as Liam Donaldson in the UK and Roselyne Bachelot-Narquin in France.
The other problem is that this particular vaccine has not undergone the usual rigorous clinical trials one should expect. Should it occur, I’ll take my chances with the disease.
I have a genuine question – so far unanswered – about the issue of compulsory mass vaccination in the event of a significant non take up. According to the unconfirmed stuff I’ve found on the Internet, 76% of French are choosing not to have the jab.
Have you seen Simon Jenkins eminently sensible article in today’s ‘Guardian’? (16 Jan). He’s attracting a surprising amount of critical fire from the credulous believers in all the scary guff.
Interestingly, he is being accused of hindsight. Yet it was obvious from the off that this was just another scare story. Indeed, these days, when Liam Donaldson says something I automatically assume that the opposite is true. If that bastard said that the sun comes up in the morning, I’d nip outside at dawn to check.
Re Liam Donaldson, he applies a entirely different logic to all this.
Re Simon Jenkins, he usually talks sense (on traffic lights, drugs, elfin safety etc), even though he is a NIMBY
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