Antivax Populi

I've always loved a good ol' fashioned plague! The masses of people quarantined in their homes, the sense of despair, and the solemn cry of "Bring out your dead!" echoing in the still morning air...ahhhhhh! It's always so easy to get a good seat in a restaurant! Good times, good times.

Imagine my disappointment when I discovered how milquetoast the current contender, H1N1, turned out to be. Better known by it's catchier name, the Swine Flu, this catchy but not often fatal version of influenza seemed promising at first but quickly showed it's true colors. As of this writing there have been 3009 cases in the U.S. and ONLY THREE DEATHS! What happened? It all seemed so promising with the early reports out of Mexico claiming over 150 unconfirmed deaths and countless images of people wearing masks. It felt like Christmas! Well, it would have if I wasn't a demon and would have actually benefited from the birth of the Messiah, but you get my drift. Hand sanitizer sold out and schools closed but sadly this flu didn't even come close to killing the 36,000 people the regular flu does every year. The CDC is even already talking about having a vaccine by Autumn. What a bust! I bought a new walking stick and had my hooves re-shod in anticipation of taking a walking tour of the great plague ridden wastes. I guess I'll be staying home this summer. Sigh.

So what happened? Well, microbiology is not my area of expertise, but I suspect something even more virulent to be behind the bravado of this porker peril...FEAR. The animal mind of man instantly jumps into "fight or flight" mode with every perceived threat. They so readily ignore those big ol' brains their Creator endowed them with and react without thinking. Swine flu, stock market, it's all the same. Put a bunch of panicked people together and they will infect and re-infect each other with such intensifying levels of fear that nothing but destruction of some kind will result. This is evidenced by the bloody wounds of red ink slashed across many businesses and homes across the globe. The Mexican economy alone was shut down for five days as people braced themselves against the virus.

Ironically while fear has caused many people to take extreme precautions against an illness with no known vaccine, it has also been causing parents to expose their children to deadly diseases that DO have vaccines. Autism is a real threat, affecting 1 out of 150 children each year. There is no standard test for autism and doctors still have no clear idea of the cause. All of this uncertainty becomes a veritable petrie dish for irrational thought. The perceived culprit singled out as the scapegoat...childhood vaccines. Since 2000 there has been a growing concern of the safety of the concoctions injected into little "Johnny" and "Jane". Basic confusion involving causation with coincidence along with poorly conducted (and possibly falsified) research has fueled the fire. So much so that many parents FORGO the very things that will save the lives of their children to protect them from a disorder that could leave them alive but developmentally challenged.

Early evidence suggested mercury, more specifically the organomercury compound "thiomersal" added as preservative, caused autism because the symptoms appeared in some developing children soon after being immunized. The FDA had already conducted studies in the 70's and found thiomersal to be safe, but due to growing pressure it recommended that the substance be removed from all infant vaccines except flu vaccines. This was completed in 2001. Autism is still prevalent despite the actions of the FDA, and studies done by doctors and scientists that find no link between vaccines and the disorder. However facts mean very little to panicked parents. The Enemy warns against this in the book of Proverbs, "It is not good to have zeal without knowledge, nor to be hasty and miss the way." Thanks to the "vigilance" of frightened parents, there is a growing number of children who aren't getting vaccinated, leading to an increasing number of deaths from oldies but goodies like the measles and whooping cough. This is the glorious result when people are influenced to make decisions based upon emotions rather than rational thought.

Can another plague be far behind? Where is that walking stick?

Brackish