AstroBlonde

Studied today as usual but that's of no interest. Instead I'm gonna skip that part and talk about an interesting topic I had with a friend of mine on the phone. We discussed the Swine flu vaccine and she couldn't really make up her mind if she wanted to take it or not. I think it's totally ok if someone doesn't wanna have the shot, hey I never got vaccinated again any other flu before so. But when people start to argue about if it's healthy or not I get a bit irritated. As she said "I don't wanna be a guinea pig".

You know, people take medicines for everything these days without considering the effects it has. Well, people seem to know that it may not be good, but they take it anyway. But when it comes to the Swine flu shot media has made it such a big deal! Sure, it contains mercury as almost all the vaccine shot you've ever taken before and we know that's not healthy. But at the same time people eat fish that probably contain mercury and radioactivity substances. Some people walk around with mercury in their teeth (amalgam) that is slowly making it's way into the body. No one reflects on that.

The vaccine also contains substances to help the immune system to defeat the virus that is put into your body. Apparently, if you should belive the media, this type of vaccine has a little more of that substance than other vaccines. But at the same time, people take medicines every day for different matters. The vaccine you get once and then no more. The vaccine contains a virus that is similar to the real Swine flu but not as aggressive.

Also what people don't think of is that this vaccine has been tested on far more people than for other vaccines (or medicins for that matter).

Of course there are risks taking this vaccine, but no more risk than other medicines. People can point fingers and say that person got this and that because of the shot. Sure, if you vaccinate alot of people someone is going to get some side-effect of it. It's the same thing if you're gonna put every person on this Earth to fly with different airplanes: someone is going to crash. As my friend said "But I don't wanna be that person". Of course not! I don't wanna be the person who gets a meteorite in my head either, or gets hit by a car, or crash with an airplane... That is just chances we have to take in life. But I also don't wanna be the person who gets informed that I've infected a person who died because of it.

I mean, come on! If you don't wanna take the vaccine that is totally fine. But if you're gonna argue that the risk is too high, just don't do it infront of me. You take bigger risks every day than taking the vaccine. You can't walk around scared every day. "Life is a sexual transmitted disease with 100% mortality". You just don't know when.

Now to the media. I get sick and tired of the media! When will media start to take responsibility for what they write? I remember so clearly the whole LHC at Cern thing in media. Remember? Scientists wanna create, if possible, tiny, tiny black holes to study them. God, that was a mess! It's probably a scientists fault in the beginning saying something like "well, there's a small chance that the black hole would grow larger and 'swallow' the Earth, but that chance is so small and we're sure it won't happen". That is kinda a typical scientist statement to analyse from every angle, and there's no course for scientists called "How to talk to the media" (not that I know anyway, maybe there should be...). The media picked up the "'swallow' the Earth" part and made big news out of it without even knowing anything about particle physics. Some people got so scared that some committed suicide, some fainted the day the particle accelerator started, particle scientists got threatened and so on. I sat that day in newspaper chats, and on my own homepage to explain particle physics and calm people down. It was crazy!

The whole Swine flu in media is kinda like the LHC story. They write about one person over here and someone on the other side of the planet who did this and that. It's no fun to write an article about all the people who got well from it without any complications, or got the vaccine without anything strange happening. The whole Swine flu story is probably so overexaggerated that you probably don't need to take the vaccine at all. That is totally ok! But if you feel that you want to take the shot (which I do because of many reasons) just base your actions on statistics and science instead of the media. You use that method when you cross the road every day, fly with an airplane or take the elevator and so on. Why not use it with the Swine flu as well...