Three Cubed

I’m getting sick of the flu…flu vaccine, that is. I can’t believe that so much political hay is being made over the shortage of flu vaccine.

The U.S. flu vaccine shortage became public two weeks ago when British regulators cited contamination problems in closing one of the two companies that make vaccine for the U.S. market. That nearly cut in half the 100 million doses U.S. officials were expecting from Britain.

Each year, 200,000 Americans are hospitalized with the flu and 36,000 die. There are nearly 300,000,000 Americans. That means that less than one tenth of a percent of the total population of this country gets hospitalized and an even smaller fraction of a percentage dies.

For John Kerry and John Edwards, this is another example of Bush's incompetence and lack of compassion. In truth, the blame goes to runaway frivolous lawsuits that drive manufacturers overseas. I think one of the candidates here knows a thing or two about wanton lawsuits…

I really think this whole thing is blown way out of proportion. I have never gotten a flu shot. Until recently, most people I know have said that they wouldn’t get a flu shot because they either felt like they didn’t need it or were worried that the shot would make them ill.

A recent poll found just over a third either plan to get the flu vaccine this year or have already gotten it. 28 percent say they plan to get the vaccine and 7 percent say they have already gotten the vaccine this year. Extrapolating that, assuming of course that the poll’s sampling was an accurate and scientific sample, would mean that 84 million shots are needed to meet that demand. Based on the numbers for the shortage, we’re only about 30 million shots in the hole if we were counting solely on the overseas supply.

42 percent say they got the flu vaccine last season. That’s one and half times as many people that claim they have received or will seek a flu shot this year. Somehow, that doesn’t make sense. That would mean that last year, 126 million flu shots were provided. That’s only 26 million more than we expected from Great Britain. And I’m sure that we were manufacturing more than 26 million doses here in the States.

I think these people answering polls either don’t know what they did yesterday much less what they’re going to do tomorrow and these polls are worthless.

Even the poll qualified its findings. It said that while a substantial number of Americans say they're worried about the shortage, a majority say it's not much of a concern.

The real shortage that Kerry and Edwards are concerned about are Electoral votes. And they will scare the daylights out of Americans to scare up some more Electoral votes. Repeat the lie enough and it becomes the truth. Thank God they can only repeat it for 11 more days. Maybe, it will stay a lie.