Will The Vaccine Be Scarier Than The Swine Flu?

After a brief respite from my usual sarcasm, I have decided that today's post will, once again, delicately point out more absurdity.

First, I should point out that I know very little about flu, or pandemics, or even pigs. Yes folks ... my post today is about swine flu.

First a little historical context. In the flu pandemic of 1918 it is estimated that over 40 million people lost their lives. This was in fact bird flu and not swine flu. Which is worse? I have no idea. I'm resonably sure it depends on the strain. And I'm also fairly certain nobody else knows either, with respect to the WHO.

Fast forward to 1976, Fort Dix army base in New Jersey. One 19 year old soldier died, hundreds more infected. Predicatably, perhaps justifiably, President Gerald Ford panicked, spending hundreds of millions of 1970's dollars on a nationwide vaccination program.

This vaccine resulted in the deaths of more than 30 people from the paralysing nerve disease Guillain-Barre syndrome ... and who knows how many others incapacitated.

Facing protests, the program was scrapped within the year.

What have we learnt? Not too much, by all accounts. The UK has already ordered over 30 million face masks, even though a face mask offers only marginal "protection" over a window estimated at less than 3 hours. And everyone's gearing up for a pandemic. We're now a "5" on a scale of "6". At the time this level was upgraded, 7 people were dead and person to person infection had only just been established as a possibility.

I wonder if we'll all be forced to take a vaccine and play more Russian Roulette with our lives and well-being?