Shoot Me Once

There's nothing much to report from Hillmomba.

In local news, the paper says that oodles of people showed up yesterday for swine flu shots at the fairgrounds. Yep. It IS Hillmomba, people. To give shots at the county health center or a hospital would make too much sense. I wonder if it was near the pig pen area of the fairgrounds? This event had been planned for about a week, with the county health department to give 800 shots. Turns out there were 2200 vaccinations available. Who knew? Of course they said that people would be screened at the main gate, with pregnant women and children having priority, and kids with chronic illnesses getting preference. I'm betting that a lot of kids suddenly developed chronic illnesses on Sunday. What kind of proof were they asking for, anyway? Oh, and earlier in the week, pregnant women and children under 3 were cautioned that they could not have the shot with preservatives, but Sunday morning, it was suddenly OK for them to have a shot with preservatives. We're talking thimerosal, people. Mercury. Seems that the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services granted an exemption last Thursday to allow pregnant women and kids under 3 the H1N1 shots with thimerosal. What's next, spraying up their noses with live swiney virus?

Did you know that people who get the nasal flu mist vaccination can shed live virus? Here's a bit of a technical study of seasonal flu virus shedding after the flu mist. It was a small sample, and I think it was a vaccine for Influenza B. But here is what they found out, in case you don't want to read a whole paragraph of scientific lingo. 10 out of 20 people who received the flu mist were found to shed the live virus on day three after their misting. That's HALF of the people who had it, were sneezing out live virus that could infect somebody else. OK, so they sampled this by swabbing their noses, but you can't tell me those people went without sneezing or picking their noses for three days. The research also showed that the younger the subjects, the more likely they were to shed the virus, since the younger people did not have a history of as many previous flu vaccinations. Makes you think, huh? Who are they pushing this flu mist on? Young people between the ages of 2 and 49. OK, so 49 isn't all that young. But still, all those kids are gonna go to school sneezing that stuff out and touching the desks and drinking fountains and each other with their snotty booger-pickers. Because with the flu mist, you actually get a slight case of the flu, except that it can't survive in the higher temperature of your lungs, so supposedly it stays in your nasal cavities while your body builds your immunity.

Needless to say, I did not trot my Pony and #1 son out to the fairgrounds for a shot. Don't go lookin' for them to get it if it is handed to us on a silver platter. The seasonal flu shot was as far as this Hillbilly family is going. No squirt of live virus up OUR noses. No sirree, Bob! Don't go pointing your booger-pickin' fingers at ME when there is a peak of swine flu cases around here in a couple of weeks. We are not getting the mist, nor the shot for swine flu.

We will donate our share of this vaccine to the First Family.