Can you name the manufacturer of any vaccine you have received in your life up until the COVID-19 vaccine? I know I can’t. I never cared, just got what the doctor gave out and assumed it was generic as with subsidized healthcare that is usually the case. I never cared who made the vaccine I put into my body, I just wanted to not get the horrible diseases the vaccine would prevent.
I never really got my flu shot. Never cared to. I would get the flu on occasion but generally it was mild and I saw no need to vaccinate myself every year for it. When I started working full time I also realized that the reason employers push the flu shot so much is because they don’t want to lose money on sick days. The pharmacies pushed it as a marketing tool to get people in the door spending money. It was all about money.
That kind of turned me off getting it even more. But I still got my vaccines. When I traveled to India I got a whole needle parade of vaccines. I don’t even remember which ones, yellow fever? Typhus? Either way I can probably drink water from a stream now with no ill effects.
I also get a tetanus shot every year or so. This is more due to my clumsiness causing me to go to the ER where they ask when my last tetanus shot was. I forget most of the time so they just shoot me up with a fresh one. No problem. I am even considering getting a rabies shot just because that is such a horrible disease and I do like to unwisely approach wild animals.
But with all these vaccines I can not name a single manufacturer. I could guess but I think with some of the older ones it would be generic and with the new ones probably some obscure medical company. So I found it strange when COVID-19 hit and all of a sudden people were tossing around brand names for vaccines like they were shopping for shoes.
It really stood out to me. Everyone talking about the Moderna, the Pfizer, the Johnson & Johnson and the Astrazeneca to name the top ones. There are some others especially when you leave North America but the point remains, why all of a sudden are these names being flaunted around and why do people care?
It is a giant marketing campaign. A giant abuse of a disaster. Profiteering at its worst and we are holding these names up like the saviors of humanity. People seriously discussing different brand of vaccine like they are car shopping. Does that strike no one else as odd? How all of a sudden, do we all know the names of big pharmaceutical companies? Then we all venerate them as out savior in our time of need.
That we have swept the years of unethical testing, malpractice suits and other sketchy shit these companies have done under the rug is astonishing. This is all a massive PR campaign on their part. An image scrub, a rewriting of history. If this was done for the betterment of society, if the vaccines were created from a genuine place of good why patent them?
That is what really gets me. Am I an antivaxxer? Far from it. I believe in vaccinations and have a full vaccine card to prove it. It does get my defenses up to see the blatant profit motive behind this COVID-19 vaccination campaign. This giant marketing ploy. This rush to market and get government exemption for a disease that is not all that dangerous.
I don’t know what my point is though. I do believe COVID is real and that it is dangerous. I believe we screwed up our initial response to it. I know China lied to the world and let this virus out when it could have been contained and controlled at the source. I know that after years of half measures the endless lock downs, stripping of rights and destruction of business served no purpose. I know that this vaccine campaign has all signifiers of a massive marketing campaign. I know that the vaccine is probably safe but I still remain hesitant to get it.
Not out of fear of side effects. I run so much experimental medicine and substances through my system that it would be pretty hypocritical of me to worry about a vaccine. More out of principal. Give me a generic. I don’t want name brand vaccine in my body. That is the main issue I have. I don’t want to be a part of this disaster capital death spiral we are in.
We will see more of this in the future too. Not only with vaccines but also with global warming and climate intervention initiatives. The big friendly corporation will swoop in to offer some half assed solution to a problem that they helped create and we will eat it all up. Our government’s will gladly write them a blank cheque and send them on their way. Let them recapture carbon from the atmosphere and sell it back to us.
The era of benevolence in saving the world is behind us. Now we are facing a bleak future. The late stage Capitalist one of corporations creating and solving issues endlessly while we all cheer them on. While we work for them and throw money at them and hope they save us from their destruction.
No one wants to save the world anymore, everyone wants to get rich. Find a problem and solve it, make sure to charge for it. Mask your greed by looking like a hero. That is my problem with this whole thing. If it was really for the betterment of the world why would we need to brand it?
Take that any way you will. I am not against vaccines, I am against blind consumerism. The blind consumerism that is driving this planet to the brink. The blind consumerism that has destroyed culture, packaged it up and sold it back to us in a neat little plastic package. The consumerism that builds end dates into products so people have to constantly buy and upgrade. Filling landfills with toxic waste and mining the earth of every last mineral. The consumerism that drives people to eat themselves to death, numb themselves with drugs and mindless entertainment. The vaccine comes from the pits of this consumerism. That is why I am against getting it. The same reason I try to avoid shopping at Wal Mart and eating Fast Food.
I will probably end up getting the shot. I wish there was a generic but sadly that does not seem to be in the near future and I do want to be able to travel outside my country again. Oh well, this is the future we live in now and I am stuck here too.
Thanks for reading.
-Craig