Thursday, September 3, 2009

Am I the Only Person...

...who thinks the media is over hyping Swine Flu/H1N1?

Seems to me it was a big deal last season and the pharmecutical companies jumped on the band wagon and produced the vaccine.

Suddenly, there won't be enough. Ohnoes. And now we need to have our children vaccinated instead of just under 2 yo., the elderly and those with compromised immune systems.

Is anyone thinking that they now have a boatload of vaccine they can't offload and someone, somewhere [Hello Pharmecutical Lobbyists] have gotten to the media to scare us into depleting the supply?

The media is threatening 100,000 deaths this season. Really? Already this morning they have quarantined SIX [OMG! Six!!!!] students at Emory University with the flu.

Is it all necessary or is it just to make sure their stash of drugs is sold?

Heaven forbid they don't make their profit.

**This ends my "Cost of Medical Care" diatribe for September.

3 comments:

Yvo Sin said...

Funny you say that. I feel like they hyped the f* out of it when it first started, and now it's gone by the wayside, even though it appears more and more people actually have it. People I actually know now have it, and it's kind of scaring me. Am I vaccinated? No. But I don't even hear about it on the news anymore...

Rudee said...

Oh, I don't know. It's easy to have distrust of both the media and the pharma industries, but I know I do have a healthy respect for influenza, whatever its strain.

Though I no longer work with the acutely ill, I have seen the flu bring young and otherwise healthy people to their knees. My respiratory therapist friends who do still work in ICUs tell me that this summer, they sent many young adults to U of M for treatments that would save their lives from H1N1.

An excellent read is The Great Influenza by John Barry. It may give you a different perspective of the flu, and swine flu in particular.

I will be getting my vaccines this year. I don't care who profits from it, I don't want to wake up in some hospital's ICU with a tube stuck down my throat--or worse--find myself on heart-lung bypass because my lungs couldn't take a little flu bug on.

Gail said...

I don't watch the news so I don't get hyped over their hype.

Good comment, Rudee, it is good to hear a medical view.