EDITOR’S NOTE: The following article is a satirical article promoting the flu shot. The advocacy of the shot reflects the opinion of the writer, and although the article makes some points based off of scientific knowledge, you the reader are encouraged to do some research of your own to make an informed decision.
By Angelina Labonne
Managing Editor
angelina.labonne@mb.rctc.edu
So I think we can all agree that the flu shot is just a made up vaccine perpetuated by the government to make us sick and waste our money (“Big Brother” is most likely just aiming to place tracking devices in us), therefore, I will give you some reasons why you should avoid getting the flu shot at all costs.
First off most of us reading this article are healthy individuals so why bother wasting the approximate five minutes it will take to get a flu shot? In addition, we are never exposed to immunocompromised people such as children and the elderly population, so the possibility of transmitting the virus to them as a live carrier is really out of the question.
If you happen to do something crazy and visit your grandparents or take care of your children, you can just wear a mask and wash your hands every 30 seconds because that is much less of an inconvenience than going to the millions (exaggeration) of locations to get a shot, and if you don’t feel like protecting those around you, honestly it’s no big deal. You are just contributing to the selfish, me-first society that we all have come to love in America.
Health insurance is at the core of my second reason to stay clear of this monster in a syringe. Don’t be fooled by your insurance company’s willingness to almost guarantee full coverage of this shot at little to no cost to you, remember they are all part of the system that is ultimately just trying to control you.
They parade this practically free vaccine at almost every Walgreen’s, Hy-Vee, local doctor’s office, and just recently our own campus! The low cost and easy accessibility of this vaccine are in part what makes it so dangerous! (for a list of places to avoid please visit RCTC’s health services web page)
The next completely valid reason to avoid the flu shot is that it will in fact make you sick. The virus injected into your body is a non-living virus, however, it will most definitely find some way unknown to science to come back to life and become a zombie-crazed virus that takes over your soul (exaggeration), and maybe just your immune system. Once again do not let those in power fool you!
The symptoms will in no way be mild and cause no real interference with your life, and they will most certainly be worse than actually contracting H1N1 at full force once flu season hits.
Besides, if you do actually catch the flu, it’s not like you can’t just get drugs to cure you such as antibiotics, because everybody knows that antibiotics kill viruses, and you will never have to be sick for up to almost two weeks with high fevers, body aches, chills, stuffy/runny nose, sore throat and cough. Therefore, why risk getting moderately “sick” when you can just hold out for the real thing!
So in conclusion, just remember peers next time you go to sit at your desk in class. The person before you might have had influenza, and lucky for you the virus can live on hard surfaces for about 24 hours so chances are you will also pick it up. Not to worry, though, you didn’t get vaccinated so you are almost guaranteed a miserably sick life for the next 3-10 days in which you will have to take off work, school, not hang out with friends, and possibly get dumped (because who likes a snot nose).
On the positive side, you didn’t have to inconvenience yourself and endure the 5 terrible seconds of wrenching pain that comes with getting a shot, waste five minutes of your day standing in line to help protect yourself and those around you (instead you waited 20 minutes for that nonfat extra foam pumpkin spice latte that cost half your life savings … worth it!), or let your insurance pay for something that other countries don’t even have access to. Oh and “Big brother” didn’t get the chance to implant a tracking device … but what about the cell phone in your hand that doesn’t have some weird way to track you like find my location, right?
Good luck!