For the last ten days or so, I’ve been ‘battling’ the flu. People always seem to have a health battle these days, don’t they, even though the health condition usually, at least for a while, makes the battle somewhat one-sided. Having said that, I’ve exhibited pretty well all the flu symptoms, yet they have not prevented me from doing most of the stuff I want to do. That is because I had the flu jab as per usual and while it has not completely prevented the onset of flu it has helped me to function adequately. I believe passionately in jabs – vaccines – because they have been proven to work and are generally speaking safe. It is the actions and comments of anti-vaxxers this year that have pissed me off as much an anything.
Among the legion of relatives and friends who have died this year, around half of them died from cancer. They were all tragic in their own ways and, on the face of it, only one was probably avoidable. I do not propose going into depth about any of the cancer deaths except one and even then it will be without naming names and even hinting at identities.
Let’s just say that when an old friend revealed his stage four cancer diagnosis last year, a long-standing friend of his said that essentially his terminal cancer was his own fault for taking the Covid vaccine. They then never saw him again, not even so much as sending him a text message. Once he died, they didn’t bother with the funeral, either. I could not have imagined a worse reaction to a friend getting cancer, but then I reckoned without the sheer insanity represented by the world of conspiracy theorists, in this instance anti-vaxxers.
Do I understand how vaccines work? No, not really. But then, I have no idea how to follow instructions in order to assemble flatpack furniture or how to conduct root canal surgery. I leave that sort of thing to experts. We all do. We employ plumbers, electricians, roofers, car mechanics and people to service our boilers. Accepting the word of top scientists and medical folk seems a logical step to me.
My friend’s former friend probably feels no regret, having been convinced that vaccines kill more people than the conditions they are designed to prevent. My friend was stoical about it, with not a hint of bitterness, which made him a better man than I’d ever be. His friend, he explained, had been brainwashed by their partner and had long disappeared down the rabbit hole. The moon landings had been faked, 9/11 was an inside job, the world was secretly run by a cabal of lizards and vaccines not only killed people, they were a weapon of the deep state. People who followed scientific and medical advice were just mugs, unable to see what was obvious to every conspiracy theorist who gained most of their knowledge from … er … Facebook groups.
Part of me wanted that person to turn up at my friend’s funeral but most of me didn’t. I know I wouldn’t have stayed quiet and that probably would have helped no one. The other thing is that many of us can become susceptible to misinformation.
Some of you may recall a now discredited doctor, Andrew Wakefield, who came up with the evidence-free theory that the MMR vaccine caused autism. Our children were very young at the time and despite being advocates of vaccines, we still thought twice before concluding they were safe on the basis of evidence or in this case the lack of it. I know plenty of people who either didn’t vaccinate their children or paid large sums of money to have the three vaccines administered separately. This happened over 20 years ago when the internet was not quite the thing it is today. Imagine what it would be like should a new Wakefield come along with his horseshit theories, which were at the time spread across the gutter press – you can guess which newspapers – and they were all over social media. Most of us prefer to go along with the evidence but many don’t.
My flu jab this year has, I am quite sure, prevented me from getting the worst of the flu. Before I became eligible, I had the flu and for a while it felt like death would be a preferable option.
In the end, it comes down to one thing: who do believe? If you believe someone who tells you, in all seriousness, that someone deserved to die because they took a vaccine, you may wish to delete me from your contacts book. Michael Gove once said: “The public have had enough of experts.” If he’s right and they have, we are well and truly fucked.
