Steve Sack by Steve Sack
- October 19, 2009
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Tags: H1n1 fears, halloween. Add Tags
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Marshall Ramsey by Marshall Ramsey
Ben Sargent by Ben SargentAbout Steve Sack
Steve Sack has been the staff editorial cartoonist for the Minneapolis Star Tribune since 1981. He has won assorted local and national cartooning awards, and has once been named a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.
© 2009 Creators Syndicate - All Rights Reserved.
Comments (42) Jump to Comments Form
believecommonsense
said,
about 1 month ago
Parents of small children weigh in here please …..
scottfreitas
said,
about 1 month ago
Try to remember the last swine flu vaccine, back in the 1970s. It cripped and killed FAR more people than did the actual flu itself.
FACT.
omQ R
said,
about 1 month ago
Hmmm, I have a 21 month old toddler. I won’t be taking her to a swine flu party.
Each country seems to have a varying policy of who should be getting a flu shot depending on their strategy of tackling it. The UK has moved from a containment phase to a treatment phase so the vaccinations are to start tomorrow. Although my toddler fits an at-risk group (under 5), she is not part of the first wave of those who will be getting the vaccine. I would prefer that she does get the vaccination. I believe if I request it, I should be able to get it.
However, my daughter has a cold and currently has symptoms that matches 3 on the list to look out for. And she is due to travel to Austria this Thursday. :p
So, what we will do: keep her indoors, avoid the usual playgroups this week, keep her well hydrated and check her temperature regularly. If she’s still ill this Thursday, bugger, means she’s grounded :p
I won’t hold it against the parents who rather not have the vaccine, just hope they follow sensible precautions as regards hygiene.
ahab
said,
about 1 month ago
Scott. Jesus man ! Go ahead and get someone’s child killed you @#$Z%t. You have no business in medicine or prescribing or recommending anything. The current vaccine is very safe. All vaccines have a very low risk for Guillain-Barre syndrome, Bell’s palsy, asthma attack in people with prior asthma. The dead virus vaccine(injection) has a 5% or lower for mild reactions, low grade fever ,malaise of 8 to 24 hours after injection. People with egg allergy should avoid the vaccine as the virus is grown in eggs. During the Ford administration they attempted to vaccinate the whole country. The Spanish-flu epidemic killed 50 million people. So the epidemic never arrived and some people died some developed G.B., ETC. A FEW MILLION PEOPLE WERE VACCINATED. The 1918 epidemic was a variant of the H1N1 influenza so they were justified. This current virus has killed 4000 people worldwide, infected millions so far in over 100 countries. I urge people to talk to their pediatricians or physicians. Children and pregnant women are showing the highest risks currently for severe illness. Yes, sigh, I am an M.D. omQ R is right, good hygiene and mask for infected coughing household members is imperative. The live virus-nasal spray is currently being given to children and also Children Hospital staff. The live,attenuated virus vaccine is a risk for immune-suppressed patients, so they need the dead virus shot instead.(Chemotherapy patients, Rheumatoid arthritis patients on Enbrel,etc.) Resources; infectious disease -CDC update,the book, America,s Forgotten Pandemic, The Fear Factor-Michael Spector,pgs39-40,The New Yorker Magazine October12.2009.
believecommonsense
said,
about 1 month ago
ahab, thanks.
i think it was Jon Stewart who did a take on the rightwing cable shows practically concocting a conspiracy about the vaccinations and then couple of days later they were concocting a conspiracy about not enough being available. I wonder why no one on these shows notices the hypocrisy.
comYics said, about 1 month ago
I think the intent is correct for getting vaccinated. I am going to opt out due to the lack of testing performed on this vaccine in so little time to get it to the public.
cdward said, about 1 month ago
comYics, go ahead and opt out. The testing has been done over years with the flu vaccines – and this one is nearly identical to all the rest, only a different strain. I listened to a doctor the other day express frustration over this paranoia – he said the H1N1 has received the same testing as all the seasonal flu vaccines (which are slightly different every year). So, if you ever got a flu vaccine for any other type, it had the same testing.
comYics said, about 1 month ago
Well I did get the regular shot in the arm flu vaccination.
charlie555 said, about 1 month ago
The religious arguments against vaccines seem to revolve around the desire to leave oneself in the hands of God rather than men. It presupposes a belief that it is impossible to die a moment before God wills it.
Then there is the fear of accidental or malicious contamination of the vaccine.
The only practical argument I have heard is that it may be in the interest of our children to have this flu while they are young and strong so as to have antibodies in the future against a different strain.
(I heard that the reason the elderly are immune to the present swine flu is because they had a variant strain of it as children?)
But doesn’t the vaccine give the same antibodies?
PlainBill said, about 1 month ago
I have mixed feelings about the conservatives trying to scare people away from the H1N1 vaccine. This story relates the very real threat poses to the young, especially if symptoms are ignored. http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/news/articles/2009/10/18/20091018fluvigil1018.html
On the other hand, most of the people who believe Beck, Limbaugh, etc will be conservatives. So, consider it evolution in action.
vhammon
said,
about 1 month ago
I wish I could trust the CDC. However, we’ve gone from giving children 6-10 childhood vaccines to about 40, some for diseases that most children are unlikely to get. Vaccines are an enormous profit maker for the pharmaceutical industry, and it is clear that industry can contribute thousands to politicians and get back Billion dollar benefits. I’d like to believe. What makes you believers so sure that your best interests are what concern the pharmaceutical industry most?
Like the overuse of antibiotics that has proven to be a short-term benefit, long-term disaster, it appears possible that the overuse of vaccines, which then leach into our water supply, may be encouraging resistant strains, and doing other untested/untold long-term damage.
Read Mercola.com for some alternative information from a well-respected source.
fennec said, about 1 month ago
ahab, motive or somebody, PLEASE explain to these people about the difference between a pharmacological agent and a vaccine. Explain how the immune system works as opposed to antibiotics and antivirals work. I just don’t have the patience to do it anymore!
motivemagus said, about 1 month ago
A vaccine “trains” your own immune system through the use of weakened or dead cells of pathogens, which your system learns from – as it does from having the disease, but without getting sick – and then can defend against. Related approaches have been used in some form since the early 1700s. Yes, the 1700s. (Cotton Mather was an early advocate of inoculation, which is a precursor). An antibiotic acts as a toxin to bacteria. If you go through a complete course, you overkill the bacteria, so none are left even of potentially resistant strains.
Did I get that mostly right, fennec?
Hope I got that right, fennec.
fennec said, about 1 month ago
Thanks, motive. Exactly right and better than I would have done (I’d get too technical!). One thing I’d add is that the vaccine is given at very low dose and does not leave the body in any active form, whereas drugs are at high doses and a large amount is excreted in biologically active forms.
ahab
said,
about 1 month ago
see, www.immunization.org
believecommonsense
said,
about 1 month ago
motive, fennec, thanks. Been long time since I took biology back in college.
motivemagus said, about 1 month ago
ahab, I went there and it wasn’t an occupied site.
Copperdomebodhi said, about 1 month ago
I’ve got a six-year old, and he’ll be getting the shot. People panic about minute risks because vaccines work so well - nobody remembers the horrors of an epidemic any more.
marylc
said,
about 1 month ago
The real petri dishes for swine flu are the factory pig farms.
marylc
said,
about 1 month ago
The real petri dishes for swine flu are the factory pig farms.
Corosive Frog said, about 1 month ago
The trouble when we vaccine a lot of people and nothing comes is we’ll never know if it came but didn’t kill anyone BECAUSE they got the vaccine or if nobody would have died anyway.
fennec said, about 1 month ago
Actually, CF, that isn’t true. Some will get the disease, hopefully less severely than they would have otherwise. Besides, we can measure the production of antibodies in those vaccinated, which also gives us a measure of the success of the vaccine.
ahab
said,
about 1 month ago
motive, I blew it! It was .org, not com. sorry. The CDC also has good site information. www.cdc.gov
motivemagus said, about 1 month ago
fennec - thanks for that, good point. Has any work been done following, for example, the 1970s vaccine that scott so feelingly alludes to?
However, that doesn’t necessarily say whether people would have gotten the disease, only that they developed the antibodies as they were supposed to - success of the vaccine in terms of its immediate objective (improving the immune system response) but no way to know on the ultimate objective (preventing flu).
I suppose if enough people are convinced by the whack-jobs not to get vaccinated, we can compare their flu rates with those of us with sense. Depends on the virulence of the flu, however, or it will be trivial either way.
If we have another 1918 flu, it will be terribly obvious.
One question: isn’t it worse to have someone with full-blown flu around regardless of your vaccination? Isn’t it still possible to pick it up?
fennec said, about 1 month ago
Yes, it is still possible, but one would expect that it would be a milder case. However, if a large number of people refuse vaccination, then we will have a “clinical trial” of the sort that would never get past the human subjects committees in our universities and research groups!
ahab
said,
about 1 month ago
fennec, it amazes me how many play Russian roulette with their health. I’ve worried about pathogen/parasite movement into new areas due to Global warming. I.E. Chaga’s disease caused by a the spirochete,Trypanasoma cruzi. moving north ward into the United States. Perhaps the Multiple Sclerosis belt of high occurrence will move north as well. Vector movement could change the world malaria distribution . The Global Warming naysayers may be in for some nasty surprises.
ahab
said,
about 1 month ago
Motive, I became ill with an influenza strain that wasn’t predicted to hit the U.S. 7 or 8 years ago. I’d had the vaccination for the influenza but ran into Austrian tourists carrying an unexpected strain to the east coast. Uggh! So that, as well as fennec’s scenario are possible ways to get the bug, even vaccinated. In the unlikely event H1N1 mutates quickly we could still see bigger problems ahead.
fennec said, about 1 month ago
ahab, you have good points. I hadn’t thought about the parasitism angle, but you’re obviously quite right. I probably won’t be around to see it, but it will not be pleasant for those here.
motivemagus said, about 1 month ago
Interesting, ahab, fennec. Well, think of it as evolution in action…
TrulyBluely876 said, about 1 month ago
Brilliant panel.
You too, ahab
charlie555 said, about 1 month ago
200 children died from a bad batch of polio vaccine. All those parents had to deal with their decision to trust God through men, rather than trust God alone.
Some children may die from swine flu whose parents chose not to vaccinate them. These parents will have to deal with their decision to trust God alone, rather than trust God through men.
It is the parent’s decision.
motivemagus said, about 1 month ago
charlie, I rather think you are oversimplifying, here. God gave us the minds and abilities to develop the polio vaccine that has saved thousands of children and adults from being crippled or put into iron lungs (remember those? Largely obsolete today). In what way is God working through human beings worse than directly, if it is still God’s action? (Even fundamentalists believe the Bible was written by God guiding men!) 200 children dying from a bad batch of vaccine is a terrible thing, but you could equally well say God enabled that batch to go bad. Would you suggest dumping polio vaccine because it might be bad? (See the tens of thousands above.)
While it is the parents’ decision, there is absolutely no doubt that modern medicine has saved untold numbers of childrens’ lives, and polio vaccine is one of the greatest successes of the century. And as noted above, there is a public impact – should my vaccinated children be exposed to a disease nurtured by an unvaccinated child?
charlie555 said, 28 days ago
I’m not saying one is better than another, just that we can’t second guess that decision. Everyone weighs risks differently.
My worry is that we are heading for mandatory vaccinations for minor illnesses, without considering fully the long term effects.
motivemagus said, 28 days ago
Funny, that’s exactly how I feel in reverse – parents are refusing to vaccinate their kids even with well-established vaccines for inadequate reasons, which has far-reaching effects on public health, not to mention their own!
charlie555 said, 28 days ago
I still don’t think the evidence shows this flu is dangerous enough to risk massive inoculations (“Risk” because things can go wrong that will discourage people from being vaccinated when it really matters.), or the vaccine dangerous enough to warrant the mass fear of it.
There is something else going on here that escapes me. I think this is why I have taken a wait-and-see view on taking the shot. (That, and the fact that 1/2 the time I trust doctors, they have done me harm. God’s will, I know, but not a great incentive to trust them over Him alone.)
DrCanuck said, 27 days ago
charlie, do not get a flu shot. That would be going against God’s will if He wants you to die.
charlie555 said, 27 days ago
^ No, it would be putting myself in the hands of men to carry out His will, in imitation of Jesus Who allowed Man to both preserve and kill Him.
If God wants me to die, either the flu shot will kill me, or perhaps a disgruntled nurse, or an impatient patient, or a city bus, etc.
It is impossible to live a moment beyond the time God says, “You’re history.”
DrCanuck said, 27 days ago
charlie, this is interesting. I would like to know more. Is it possible to go against your god’s will and to force him to change his plans then?
Say your god decides a person will be rich, can you thwart his plans by, say, stealing from that person?
motivemagus said, 27 days ago
Trouble with that view, charlie, is that God gave humanity free will to make decisions. As a result, there are many things occurring that are not God’s will. Furthermore, where do you stop? “I won’t eat - if I survive, it’s God’s will.”
I am deeply suspicious of the use of God’s will to justify Man’s decisions and prejudices, and I think that one must be very careful to distinguish between the two. Plus, God helps those who help themselves! We have the intelligence and free will to make decisions.
charlie555 said, 26 days ago
We have to remember that God exists outside of time. He already knows the end to His plan of salvation in general, and our part in it in particular; (like some know the entire plot and end to an often watched movie).
God already knows all the prayers of all His people and how He has answered them, including when He has decided to let us “twist His Arm” for our consolation.
God gave us free will in order to choose His will, not ours. We have an obligation to try to discern His will and follow it.
DrCanuck said, 26 days ago
You haven’t answered the question, charlie. If your god has plans for you, and you are in agreement and try to follow them, can I force your god to change his plans for you?
charlie555 said, 26 days ago
^Do I have to say that a man cannot force God to do anything? There’s that omnipotent thing.
If God allows a rich man to be made poor, it wasn’t His will that he be rich. Otherwise He wouldn’t have allowed the robbery.