Where The Hell Did That Flu Shot Come From?!?!?

Now, I want to preface anything that follows with a couple of quick facts: 1. I am completely uninformed on this topic (as I am on most topics). 2. I am sub-forty so my view of recent historical events is capsulized in a period of under four decades. With those pesky facts out in the open, on with the rantings of me:

Where the hell did the flu shot come from? I'm not looking for the actual history of the development of the modern flu vaccination, I simply want someone to remind when the flu shot became so prevalent in our society. In my short time on this planet I have NEVER had a flu shot. That's probably because, when I was a child, my family doctor was a physician and not a drug dealer with a degree and a license. If you were trying to bullshit your way out of a day at school, Ol' Doc would happily call you out on it. He would give you the once over, quickly realizing that nothing was wrong with you, and would deliver the good news to your parent. "There's absolutely nothing wrong with your boy." He would declare with a wry smile. "Other than the fact that he doesn't want to go to school. And, there's no medicine that I can prescribe to treat that." So there it was! That sum-bitch just smashed thru your facade and sentenced you to a quick ass whoopin for costing your mom or dad a day at work, not to mention the cost of a doctor's visit, with your sniveling attempt to escape another day of torture at the hellhole you knew as junior high.

I have contracted the flu 3 times in the course of my life. Twice as a child / teen, and once as a card carrying, tax paying, no medical insurance having, adult. First, I think I should point out, that I survived my run ins with the dreaded influenza (how else would I be typing this crap!). Second, the courses of treatment for my three bouts of flu didn't vary much between each instance. Soup, sleep, Tylenol, and plenty of fluids composed the magical concoction that guided me back to earth from the edge of death's abyss. That's right! No prescriptions. My two childhood bouts of flu included a visit to the good ol' family Doc and he prescribed the aforementioned therapies. When I got the flu as an adult I didn't have any medical insurance, or cash, so I simply heeded the wise old physicians advice from my childhood. Guess what? It worked!

It wasn't until I was in my mid to late twenties that I had even heard of a flu shot. Maybe I lived a sheltered life, but I think I would have at least heard of a flu shot if it were so prevalent in society during my youthful years. My memory of the "flu shot" epidemic proliferating in our society involves the paranoia mongers that are newscasters. The build began slowly, when I saw signs at my local pharmacy touting the benefits of the flu shot for elderly citizens. I never really paid much mind to the countless minor sightings of ads pushing flu shots to old folks, until suddenly the flu shot went from reccomendation to mandatory. Now, I don't mean that the government was forcing you to get flu shots, I simply mean that the flu shot went from being a passive suggestion to an all consuming paranoia. Hell, suddenly friends of mine were rushing to the doctor's office to get shots to protect them from the flu. This changeover occurred during a span of about 2 years. Then the real push for flu shots took hold. They were everywhere!!! People were getting flu shots at the doc's, the pharmacy, the grocery store, even the friggin walmart. That's when it really kicked into gear. Every flu season the newscasters were telling the sheep of this country that they HAD to get a flu shot. They spouted their rhetoric with such fervor that they nearly implied that death was imminent if you didn't drink your kool aid, umm.... I mean get your flu shot. As sheep will do, they followed the advice of the magic haired pontificaters in the magic movin picture box. Once the paranoia seed was planted its roots took hold of everyone who believes what their TV tells them. This is when I started noticing this flu shot epidemic taking root, yet I still ignored it as a fad. (Oh, only if I had known then what the future would hold!)

Flu shots really kicked me in the teeth when, for a short period of time, they were being given to all comers at absolutely NO COST!!!! People lined up in droves to try this free mystical elixr known as the flu shot. You couldn't swing a dead cat without hitting someone who was lining up for a free flu shot. The gracious powers that be continued this giveaway for another flu season and yet millions more took their shots, like big boys and girls. Their plan was working!!!

Then, as the second chapter in the Drug Dealer's Pocket Guide To Building A Booming Clientele teaches, they inexplicably ran out of flu shots. Oh, there were excuses tossed about by the pound but the primary message was delivered loud and clear. HOLY SHIT, WE'RE OUT OF FLU SHOTS AND YOU DIDN'T GET ONE!!!! This message was broadcast in every medium of the press, and the public bit. Suddenly people who hadn't even considered a flu shot, were scared shitless that if they didn't find a source for protection against the big bad flu they were destined to die a horrid, painful, writhing, twisting, gnashing, and lonely death. "How could they have been so dumb as to not have gotten their flu shot before the supplies ran short?" They wondered. But worry not young ones, miraculously, the benevolent multi-billion dollar drug companies pooled their resources and provided a supply of their anti flu manna of life which was able to inoculate all comers. Now, as the rules of supply and demand dictate, the flu shots were no longer free. But, the masses were protected, so that was good.

Several years of the flu shot supply and demand swings went by with the masses buying every line of it. But there was a problem: the new enrollment numbers were falling in the flu shot club. "What to do?" the experts wondered. "We've already exhausted the first few options, so what can we use to increase our numbers?" As the powers that be mulled over their situation one voice, way in the back of the room, chimed up: "What about an epidemic?"

"HOLY SHIT! THAT'S IT!" the room erupted with renewed vigor as they formulated their plans. You see, kids, all it takes to make it onto the news these days is a press release. So we had the Avian flu scare. Bird flu, the newscasters love when something has a catchy name so, they ran with it and the mass hysteria grew to a fever pitch. Even more people lined up for their flu shot. THE WORLD WAS TRULY SAVED!!!

Not so fast, cuz. I'm no doctor, but I understand the basics of the body. Your immune system is a learning entity. It has to teach itself how to fight off new threats. Since I'm a firm believer in evolution, I also believe that this adaptation to threats is an evolution that your body goes thru in order to help carry you into your later years. So you have succeeded in protecting your body from the flu viruses that the medical community is equipped to combat, but you have failed your immune system by stripping it of the ability to adapt to the minor virus threats. Also, viruses have an uncanny ability to evolve. As the minor flu viruses fail to propagate the lesser know viruses evolve to fill the void left by their minor kin that the flu shots have succeeded in nearly eradicating. Now we have super viruses, spurred on by the evolution of their resistance to antibiotics, and moved on up the chain by the proliferation of the flu shot. Now it's the Swine Flu, and soon it'll be Captain Tripps. What have we done?

I'm not a scientist or a doctor, so take everything I say as potential bullshit. Also, I am not some conspiracy theorist I just understand basic economics. Why would drug companies want to cure a disease when they can treat it for the duration of your life? That is not a profitable business model. If I die from the flu, so be it, but I won't die ever having had a flu shot. If I'm going to gamble, I'll do it with nature because she gives better odds than the drug companies.

But hey, what the hell do I know. I'm probably full of shit.