It’s such a shame to see Tom Fletcher wasting space in the Nelson Star again. I guess it’s a testament to the tenaciousness of Black Press in their apparent war on unions. And when I say unions, I don’t mean just labour unions, I mean any group of organized citizenry that doesn’t tow the line with their agenda.
I’m sure we can expect another salvo soon ridiculing anyone who doesn’t want LNG and fracking in the province. (A good intro for anyone unfamiliar with this is the documentary Gasland). But, if people are reading Fletcher’s column (for me it’s like a car wreck — just gotta look), I hope they do their own research and know that for the most part all he does is sling insinuations.
It seems he’ll spin whatever he can find to slag working people. A good example was his latest drivel regarding flu shots. He attempts to distill the controversy down to health care workers being lazy and wanting a few days paid rest. What rubbish. No one wants to spend any time at all with the flu. That’s a day of rest?
I work in healthcare and I got my flu shot Wednesday, but I didn’t do it lightly. I wanted to be sure the adjuvant squalene wasn’t present as it was in some H1N1 vaccine, so I asked. When I got a confused look from the person about to poke me, I rephrased the question to “is this the vaccine for pregnant woman” (which is absent the adjuvant) to which I got a nod. Again, if you’ve any interest in this please go to http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10640454 and you’ll see why I asked. Squalene was first patented as a sterilization agent for livestock. It occurs naturally in our bodies, but then so does hydrochloric acid, and we don’t inject that directly into our bloodstream.
The people I know in healthcare that object to being vaccinated understand the reasoning behind it, but also feel they are taking a chance with their own long term well being in order to prevent contagion. Some distrust multinational pharmaceutical companies’ motives and influence. Lazy Tom? Give me a break!
But, again, it’s not about a substantive argument, it’s about those evil unions.
Mike Pearce