Issue date: 11/24/09 Section: Opinion

Media Credit: Osa Okundaye [Click to enlarge]

Since the H1N1 flu has become an epidemic, critics have raised staunch opposition to the vaccine for little reason other than causing controversy. People already scared and confused about H1N1 may avoid getting the vaccine because of this political ploy. People who may get sick and even die.

Several institutions and public figures have inanely attacked the vaccine. Health Freedom USA's "Stop the Shot" Complaint for Injunction claims, "There is no pandemic disease which threatens our health. There are only vaccines that do so."

Adding to the madness is Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan's who made the following claim concerning the H1N1 vaccine in a FOX News interview: "The Earth can't take 6.5 billion people. We just can't feed that many. So what are you going to do? Kill as many as you can. We have to develop a science that kills them and makes it look as though they died from some disease."

Such a claim is absolutely ridiculous, yet media clowns continue to thrive. Glenn Beck's show on FOX News earlier this month claimed to show both sides of the argument, but made a very clear bias. When a strong pro-vaccine comment was made in the debate, he made implications like holding up cigarette advertisements with doctors on them, making snide remarks like "remember, doctors say lucky strikes."

The show coupled facts and figures with opposing speculation, further confusing the American people as to the current state of affairs.

"Do you trust your government in A, that this crisis is even real, and B, that they have competently worked with the best medicine to develop, distribute, and administer a potentially lifesaving vaccine," said Beck on the Oct. 9 episode of the "Glenn Beck Show." "Do you believe that?"

Meanwhile, Beck will not disclose whether or not he and his family will get the vaccine.

Obama has declared the H1N1 pandemic a national emergency. Since April, millions have been infected, more than 20,000 have been hospitalized and more than 1,000 have died, according to Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Thomas Frieden.

A popularly elected president deserves far more faith than a media clown. But if you truly doubt the president, on June 11, Margaret Chan, the director general of WHO, raised the level of influenza pandemic alert from phase 5 to 6 on the WHO Web site, declaring that, "the world is now at the start of the 2009 influenza pandemic."

Continued...

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