Getting in line for the H1N1 vaccination - Melchior Mbonimpa

The media is full of talk about this notorious flu, but confusion still prevails. We are receiving contradictory messages and it is extremely difficult to decide which ones are simply alarmist and which should be taken seriously.

We heard that this flu would not be very dangerous because it would kill fewer people than the regular seasonal influenza, but seasonal flu vaccinations have never received the amount of publicity that H1N1 is receiving. We are advised to protect ourselves against H1N1, then we hear reports that Prime Minister Stephen Harper dodged questions as to whether he was going to get the vaccination himself.

World medical authorities are also delivering conflicting messages that come across as neither coherent nor convincing. Two weeks ago, on Christiane Charrette’s program on Radio-Canada, I heard a French woman, a guest speaker at the University of Montreal, say that a poll taken in France revealed that 60 per cent of doctors and 40 per cent of nurses there were choosing not to be vaccinated. I thought I had not heard it correctly, but the woman repeated the astonishing poll results several times during the interview. The reason given by these doctors and nurses for refusing the vaccine? “It hasn’t been tested sufficiently.”

This argument bothers me very much because I interpret it as follows: “We haven’t had enough time to test these vaccines on Third World populations who are our guinea pigs.” Some people think I’m exaggerating and that this interpretation is cynical. However, in Africa, (and very likely in other places in the southern hemisphere) there are many horror stories involving pharmaceutical companies from the First World testing their medications on unsuspecting people, without informed consent, without any opinion from an ethics committee, or any obligation to those who ended up poisoned by these unauthorized tests.

These are not simple-minded suspicions, nor wild conspiracy theories: credible testimonies from people working in the medical field in Africa tell us that, in at least three countries, one of them Cameroon, experimentation on prostitutes who did not have AIDS ended up infecting some of them with the disease, and they have never received any type of compensation.

This situation does not only involve individual liberty; collective responsibility must also be taken into account.

I am going to get a flu shot, voluntarily, in solidarity with these “guinea pigs” who have been left in the dark, uninformed. And if this decision turns out to have bad consequences for me, so be it; I will never regret it, to the end of time. I am not 100 per cent certain that this vaccination will be beneficial to me. I already know that “nothing is poison, everything is poison, only the dosage matters, the right dose will depend on the background and health of the patient.”

I also have other reasons for reacting in such a diametrically opposed manner to the Quebec web surfer who commented on the Radio-Canada web site: “Health Minister Yves Bolduc says I should go get the shot; well, I’m going to do just the opposite.”

With my background and origins, I would feel irresponsible if I did not take advantage of this opportunity because, if by chance this vaccine had an undesirable effect on me, I don’t run the risk of being abandoned to my sad fate: I will be taken care of. Here, I am not living where it is necessary to survive all kinds of epidemics as if by a miracle, without family doctors, without vaccinations, without “tested” medications available at the corner druggist.

It would be inexcusable for me, if, acting like a spoiled child, I exposed myself to possible infection and became a vector, spreading the illness all around myself. This situation does not only involve individual liberty; collective responsibility must also be taken into account.

We are often told, “When in doubt, don’t do it.” Perhaps such a maxim is wise when only the individual is involved.

But when abstaining could lead to detrimental consequences for our fellow human beings, there is only one choice: the common good must overshadow the freedom of the individual.

Melchior Mbonimpa is a professor with the University of Sudbury Ethics Centre.