Since the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccination controversy, I have always wondered why it was necessary to have a triple vaccine in one injection, why those who objected to it could not opt for individual jabs. The issue seems to have been kicked into the long grass but it remains unknown whether Prime Minister of the day, Tony Blair, allowed his own children to have the MMR injection as he refused to answer any questions on the subject - though anybody with a modicum of analytical thought would deduce that had his children received MMR vaccinations, he would surely have said so in order to persuade other parents of its 'safety'.
MMR was an issue which, given that it was a dilemma faced by all parents of young children, was hugely controversial. But much less well known is another covert multiple vaccination programme which I only discovered literally by accident.
A couple of weeks ago I hacked into my hand with an axe whilst chopping wood. It was a bad cut which needed medical attention. I had the wound stitched up and was asked when I had last received an anti-tetanus injection. I could not remember but consultation of my medical records revealed that it was fifteen years ago and I was advised that given that the implement may not have been clean I should have the injection.
It was not until the needle was about to go in that I was told that the injection also contained diphtheria and polio vaccines. Under the circumstances, I don't think that I was in a good position to make a rational decision and was given the injection which I now know is referred to as Td/IPV. I had diphtheria and polio vaccines when I was a child but there is, apparently, no alternative. Had I been less anxious about the immediate situation, I would not have consented.
There is something deeply worrying that treatments are being bundled together in such a way. Not only does it seem unnecessary but it is a question of trust - not in the practitioners who are merely dispensing the only treatments they have at their disposal - but in a one size fits all pharmaculture, reminiscent, for me, of the sealed replaceable unit system of maintenance which was being introduced in the 1980s, that, for example, back then when a washer was worn out on my bike's gear changer rendering it unusable, I had to have the whole lever assemble replaced. But the gear assemble was integral with the brake assembly. Furthermore, they were only sold as a left and right pair. The company, Shimano, no longer supplied those gear/brake units (though the bike was only two years old), so, had it not been for a bike mechanic finding an old lever in a drawer, it could have meant buying a new bike. This adds a different perspective to the old adage, 'for the want of a nail, a war was lost'.
Is this a symptom of greed, laziness, arrogance, contempt or what? It fits very comfortably in my perceived scheme of mankind's oversized footprint trampling on everything in its path. It is, in itself, an illness but not one with a cure - for the concept of infinite growth of the economy is supremely sacred and the fabric of civilisation ostensibly depends on the its foolish belief in the myth.
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