Dec. 05, 2001 - 19:12 MST

THE WONDERING JEW

Winter's Here

Not according to the calendar maybe, but according to the medical clinics where the box of Kleenex near a waste basket are prominently displayed on the counters - winter is with us.

The usual waiting room activity is present. Each new person or family group scans the room as they enter, then choose a place as far away from every one else they can. If someone sits down beside another, often the other will get up and move away. In evevators and waiting lines it is the same way, people trying to claim as much personal space as they can.

If a cough or a sneeze explodes, some folks jump. others cringe and the rest grit their teeth and everybody tries to eyeball the situation to see how close the occurrence was, the very fearful cover their nose and mouth with a handkerchief.

Now with Anthrax loose among us there seems to be an air of hostility and fear of contagion in crowds.

But we seem to live in a flip-flop lifestyle. Ask some one if they have got their flu shot yet and the negatives are legion. "I have never had a sick day in my life." "I am too young to be at risk." "I don't believe in them." "The side effects cause death, no way Jose !" On and on. Any one can contract the flu - young or old. In 1918 I think it was, that flu killed so many of our people. Side effects from avoiding a flu shot can also be fatal.

And the faintly possible reaction of the Pneumovax shot to prevent pneumonia seems to cause fear of complications too.

Now comes the fear that smallpox will be used as an instrument of terrorism. I read that our government has ordered enough extra smallpox inoculations so that it would be possible to vaccinate every one in the US. A good idea I think, but then we have fear of that running around gibbering like a scared monkey. I saw a panic article in the news paper the other day that it is feared that 300 people in our country would die from a complete vaccination and that hundreds would be sick from it. Out of a population of 280 million plus or minus. What is the percentage ? I don't think that there is a medical procedure, shot, innoculation or prescription that does not acknowledge that death or complications could occur. Our bodies were not mass produced nor do they have a warranty. Stuff happens even to the most angelic of us. If my HMO offers it I will get it as soon as possible. Accepting what is said, that the vaccination I received as a child is not a preventitive at this length of time. I hear that all of us who received vaccinations as children are now as vulnerable to it as the American Indians were when the Europeans arrived with an outrider of small pox. Which proceeded to decimate the Indian population who came in contact with the pale rider of the magic ships or those who came in contact with them.

I dunno, I would guess that more people die in auto accidents here each year than die from the complications of surgery, medication, vaccination and or shots all together.

But for better or worse, no matter what the calendar says, Winter's Here . . . . . .

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