How can so many highly educated, otherwise rational individuals blithely ignore their doctors' counsel as they dutifully follow the advice of their lower intestines?

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Alec Bruce

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In the roster of human pandemics, H1N1 (or swine flu) is a classic underachiever.

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It can't compare to the Peloponnesian War Pestilence which wiped out 30,000 Athenians, or roughly half the population, in 430 B.C. One historian at the time described the affliction thusly: "People in good health were all of a sudden attacked by violent heats in the head, and redness and inflammation in the eyes, the inward parts, such as the throat or tongue, becoming bloody and emitting an unnatural and fetid breath."

It can't hold a candle to the Black Death which killed 25 million Europeans during the Middle Ages. Victims watched in horror as their lymph glands enlarged and slowly turned the colour of coal (hence the name), their skin decayed, and their organs disintegrated. The end came slowly and painfully.

It's a lightweight alongside the Spanish flu which eradicated 50 million people around the world in the waning months of World War I. Its symptoms were high fever, cold chills, respiratory distress and, finally, terminal organ shutdown.

In fact, among the planet's current plagues and infections "" smallpox, measles, cholera, AIDs "" this batch of swine flu is a mere piffle; it presents itself, in most people, as nothing more than a particularly bad case of the sniffles. Hell, even run-of-mill seasonal flu kills more sufferers each year.

So, then, what's the big deal? Why have governments and health authorities around the world declared virtual states of emergencies, and implemented historically large inoculation programs in their respective jurisdictions?

Certainly a majority of Canadians aren't especially worried. As much as 51 per cent of us have decided to ignore the vaccine, and for a variety of reasons.

Some say the pandemic is all hype. Others insist that the anti-viral hasn't been tested well enough and could, therefore, contain chemicals more harmful than the disease itself.

Still others believe in some weird, conspiracy loving corner of their souls that inoculation programs are just Big Pharma's way of test-driving hideous, new wonder drugs designed to turn us all into compliant robo-warriors for the next wave of military-industrial conquest.

But what most of us apparently fail to appreciate is that a flu doesn't have to be deadly to wield a mortal blow to social and economic well-being.

Consider the meaning of the prefix "pan" in the word pandemic. According to MedicineNet.com, "pan comes from the Greek, and it means 'all'. Demic also comes from the Greek 'demos' and it means people.

A pandemic, therefore, affects all of the people. It is an epidemic, or sudden outbreak, that becomes very widespread and affects a whole region, a continent, or the world."

Also consider this particular virus affects babies, young people and women disproportionately "" and often far more severely. Infant care is the second-costliest line item in national and provincial health budgets, next to geriatrics.

Young people and women comprise the largest cohorts in the labour force. In fact, together, they do most of the earning and spending and tax-paying in this country.

If a picture still fails to materialize in all of this, ask yourself: Who teaches our kids, nurses our sick, administers our bureaucracies, tends our poor, builds our houses, paves our roads, launches our small businesses, and creates most of Canada's good jobs?

I'll give you a clue: It isn't an aging baby boomer by the name of Dick sitting on a beach somewhere in Cabo San Lucas checking his day trades.

As long as Dick stays where he is this winter, I'll warrant he doesn't need a flu shot. As for the rest of us, however, inoculation is as much an economic necessity as a medical one.

All of which makes me wonder how so many highly educated, otherwise rational, individuals can blithely ignore their doctors' counsel as they dutifully follow the advice provided by their lower intestines.

Why should I, or so the argument goes, subject myself to a potentially risky procedure when all I really have to do is wash my hands 10 times a day, avoid crowds and stay out of shopping malls, airports and schools?

Then again, never underestimate the power of fear to hold the human mind in thrall. The unknown quantity contained in a glass vial is far more terrifying than an all-too-familiar case of the sniffles.

Our country is only now emerging from a wretched recession. Millions remain jobless. Millions more remain underemployed.

Can we really afford to flirt with a potentially calamitous derailment of our national purpose again "" even if only for a few weeks?

Do we all want to fall ill again, just because some of us have lost sight of the social contract we maintain with one another?

Come on people "" get the shot!

You'll feel better in the morning.

Alec Bruce is a Moncton-based writer. He may be reached via www.thebrucereport.com.