I’m not into zombie movies. I thought Dawn of the Dead (now thirty years into the rear view mirror) was about as far as you could go with the genre (it’s a pretty small intellectual space.) Romero‘s satire of corporate consumer culture exhausted the “zombie metaphor” as a source of humor and critique. When these types of stories invade the local cineplex today, all we’re left with are dead-eyed stories of “actors” pursuing other “actors” with barely unexplained hunger for human flesh. Little, if any, nuance, and certainly no sub-textual critique of the zombies slurping their Cokes and chomping their popcorn as they bear witness to the brain-eating on the screen. (I know aficionados will say that is the critique, but I think that’s stretching things a bit.)
That doesn’t mean zombies don’t navigate amongst us, however. The real zombies don’t take on the raiment of cheap horror films, but they are brain-eating invaders that sap our will and have us huddling behind boarded-up windows and barricaded doors just the same. Real zombies take the form of memes, and they really are out to get you. Like their horror show counterparts, they are often too obvious and simple to claim our attention, let alone absorb it, but somehow do; they stay past their allotted life, unwilling to let go of their victims’ consciousness until they’re reduced to punchlines in bad stand-up comedy; they rise up, year after year, long after being buried by the zeitgeist, sometimes with new make-up, sometimes without, but always lurid, to plague the collective consciousness. The global village gives legs to far too many of them that would stumble into dust if our echo chambers weren’t there to shock unnatural life back into them.
Which brings us to the H1N1 Vaccine War (itself but the latest chapter of a yearly return.) The buzz around this zombie seems to be burning through the populace like a lit fuse. (Or is it?) And like so many others when it comes to putting this little zombie out of our misery, I’ve been part of the problem, not the solution. I’ve posted about it a few times already (here, here, and here), seemingly unable to break its hold.
Until now. This will be my last word on the H1N1 thing. (Unless, of course, something else interesting happens. Never say never. Don’t eat yellow snow. Stay thirsty, my friends.) But four paragraphs in to the fourth missive on this topic, you’re probably asking yourself: what else could this windbag have to say on this topic? What possible new points can he raise? Well, I’m not going to disappoint you, dear reader. The one angle I’ve been holding back–the one I thought I didn’t need to share, but now feel oddly compelled to–is exactly why I’m not getting the vaccine. To this point, I’ve yet to choose a side of the debate (though others disagree), and that’s what I’ll be doing here.
Michael Fullerton wrote up a good recapitulation of the issue, including the reasoning behind getting vaccines in the first place:
When you get the flu your body produces antibodies to fight it. So if a dead flu virus is injected into your body, your body’s immune system will produce antibodies to it without you getting sick and you won’t get that strain of flu later on. The problem is that those with impaired immune systems, those that need the vaccine the most, do not respond well to vaccines because, well, their immune systems don’t work as well. People with strong immune systems, on the other hand, will be able to fight off the flu themselves without needing a vaccine.
This is my most basic reason for eschewing the vaccine: I simply don’t need it. People have tried to convince me it’s good for all of us if I get vaccinated–to follow their lead and play the percentages to take my person, a vector of contagion, off the table, but as I’ve noted, that plea for a “socially responsible” response (getting the vaccine) doesn’t itself provide a compelling reason to get vaccinated. I’m obviously speaking for myself here; parents are in a different space, with different points to consider regarding vaccinating their children (who, presumably, are unable to make a reasoned choice for themselves–which is something I don’t necessarily grant, either), but for me, this should be enough.
But there’s more to the issue of flu vaccination than my personal need or want; the fundamental question of efficacy of flu vaccination is open (despite what the “pro-vaccination” people say.) An article at The Atlantic lays out the case for questioning the conventional wisdom on flu vaccination (and quite convincingly, I might add. They also have a good Q&A write-up on the issue and the controversy.) Literally asking “does the vaccine even matter?”, the article takes up the other side of the he-said, she-said argument the flu vaccine debate has become. To my taste, it’s more convincing than Wired‘s recent take on the subject because it focuses on the subject matter and eschews the smug certainty of the Wired article.
Liquid freedom from flu? Maybe not.
There’s too much stuff in The Atlantic article to comment on here (seriously, go read it), but a few bits did stand out to me, like this one:
What is certain is that influenza viruses mutate with amazing speed, so each flu season sees slightly different genetic versions of the viruses that infected people the year before. Every year, the World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention collect data from 94 nations on the flu viruses that circulated the previous year, and then make an educated guess about which viruses are likely to circulate in the coming fall. Based on that information, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration issues orders to manufacturers in February for a vaccine that includes the three most likely strains.
Frankly, this closes the issue for me. By the time a flu vaccine gets to you, there’s pretty serious doubt it will be the right one for the flu strain that may be out there ready to strike you down.
I’ve believed for a long time it is foolhardy to solely depend on the scientific “community” to guide one’s actions. Despite the respected status we give them, scientists are every bit as petty and vindictive as the rest of us humans, if not more so. This ugliness rears its head when the august wisdom of prevailing scientific opinion is questioned. As the article notes:
When Lisa Jackson, a physician and senior investigator with the Group Health Research Center, in Seattle, began wondering aloud to colleagues if maybe something was amiss with the estimate of 50 percent mortality reduction for people who get flu vaccine, the response she got sounded more like doctrine than science. “People told me, ‘No good can come of [asking] this,’” she says. “‘Potentially a lot of bad could happen’ for me professionally by raising any criticism that might dissuade people from getting vaccinated, because of course, ‘We know that vaccine works.’ This was the prevailing wisdom.”
This is familiar territory, too, one we should be on guard against by now. Also from the article:
Students of U.S. medical history will find this circular logic familiar: it is a long-recurring theme in American medicine, and one that has, on occasion, had deadly consequences. In 1925, Sinclair Lewis caricatured a medical culture that allowed belief—and profits—to distort science in his Pulitzer Prize–winning book, Arrowsmith. Based on the lives of the real-life microbiologists Paul de Kruif and Jacques Loeb, Lewis tells the story of Martin Arrowsmith, a physician who invents a new vaccine during a deadly outbreak of bubonic plague. But his efforts to test the vaccine’s efficacy are frustrated by an angry community that desperately wants to believe the vaccine works, and a profit-hungry institute that rushes the vaccine into use prematurely—forever preempting the proper studies that are needed.
While fictional, this plot point sounds a lot like what many of the “anti-vaccine” people are “railing” against. And, yeah, I agree with them on this particular point. In our culture, health care is predicated on money first, health second (that’s why there’s all this lunacy about “health care” reform going on right now), so wariness of the pronouncements of medical establishment aren’t just paranoid, but should be expected. But there’s even more to consider regarding flu vaccines:
“Vaccines give us a false sense of security,” says Sumit Majumdar. “When you have a strategy that [everybody thinks] reduces death by 50 percent, it’s pretty hard to invest resources to come up with better remedies.” For instance, health departments in every state are responsible for submitting plans to the CDC for educating the public, in the event of a serious pandemic, about hand-washing and “social distancing” (voluntary quarantines, school closings, and even enforcement of mandatory quarantines to keep infected people in their homes). Putting these plans into action will require considerable coordination among government officials, the media, and health-care workers—and widespread buy-in from the public. Yet little discussion has appeared in the press to help people understand the measures they can take to best protect themselves during a flu outbreak—other than vaccination and antivirals.
In the U.S., by contrast, our reliance on vaccination may have the opposite effect: breeding feelings of invulnerability, and leading some people to ignore simple measures like better-than-normal hygiene, staying away from those who are sick, and staying home when they feel ill. Likewise, our encouragement of early treatment with antiviral drugs will likely lead many people to show up at the hospital at first sniffle. “There’s no worse place to go than the hospital during flu season,” says Majumdar. Those who don’t have the flu are more likely to catch it there, and those who do will spread it around, he says. “But we don’t tell people this.”
I’ve been of the mind I shouldn’t get immunized because I was strong enough to resist these yearly strains and the science was too even-handed to call. This article indicates that supposition was not entirely incorrect. But the point raised in these last quoted paragraphs raises the ante of the discussion as it goes beyond doubting the efficacy of flu vaccines’ to questioning the long-term value of them for our “herd”. I realize I’m using the same means (appeal to authority) the “pro-vaccine” people are, but combine my personal experience with this view of the matter, and it’s pretty easy to just say no to flu vaccination.
I maintain the choice is up to the individual regardless their eventual choice. It’s a good thing there is a spectrum of discussion on the topic, even if (particularly when) there is disagreement. It’s dismaying there has been such a shrill note to the discussion–the high-school mentality is ever-present in our jingoistic culture, but that’s the order of things today. People are free to disagree, and even though it is not my recommendation to be sprayed or stuck, I wish those seeking to do so the best of luck in their quest to do so.
Which, as this article from The Guardian UK makes clear, is a tall order, and yet another front in the class war. Those nefarious bankers of Wall Street certainly follow the “pro-vaccine” path, and like everything else, they want to be first in line when it comes to getting dosed:
….Top US financial institutions have caused uproar for allegedly muscling their way to the front of the queue to get hold of scarce swine flu vaccines.
Goldman Sachs, Citigroup and Morgan Stanley were among the first employers in New York to receive shipments of the widely sought after H1N1 antidote from public health authorities this week, prompting furious attacks from political critics who claim bankers are getting privileged treatment.
You’d think with the way these douches gamble with money, they’d be more “risky” in their choice of flu vaccination strategy. Maybe they do know something I don’t. Or, more likely, when it comes to their lives, and their money, they keep the risks low.