Resocialization-the best way to get us to take our Swine Flu vaccine!
Dictionary.com defines the term “resocialization” as a noun meaning “the process of learning new attitudes and norms required for a new social role.” I know what many of you are asking; “what’s wrong with our current social roles? Why do we need to reestablish new attitudes and norms?”
In essence, resocialization is a means of changing our attitudes or altering our beliefs. It requires outside influences. Often this is the goal of commercial advertising and, within that context, there is no harm, since we have free will in our choices. For example, I personally don’t want to eat sugary foods in milk for breakfast and I currently have the right to say “no!” It is my choice! Well, it is now, but that could all change, given the sweeping changes that I’m concerned we are about to be dealt-mandated vaccines, for example. Even though cereal companies want me to believe I will run faster or jump higher after eating their cereal, I don’t believe it, so I’m not going to eat it. But what would happen if some intervening force mandated me to eat sugary cereal or be penalized? Worse, what happens if their cereal injures or kills me and my family has no recourse? Not cereal companies just yet, but is this going to occur in America (home of the free)? Are pharmaceutical companies, makers of vaccines, trying to create changes within our current social “norms.” If so and, if they are successful, before too long, we will become convinced that we must have their wares for our safety and good health-that is what resocialization is all about! Isn’t there another name for this?
Dictionary.com defines “brainwashing” as a noun meaning “a method of systematically changing attitudes or altering beliefs.” In order to successfully pull this off, believable fear must be instilled. Think about that for a moment. The New York Daily News wrote on August 25, 2009 that the “Swine Flu could kill 90,000 Americans, most of them kids” according to a White House Panel. The 21-member President’s Council of Advisers on Science and Technology, co-chaired by Sloan Kettering’s Harold Varmus, sees a plausible scenario in which 60-120 million Americans (!) will be sickened by the Swine Flu and hospital emergency rooms will be overwhelmed. Varmus contends that this is going to be fairly serious and that it will stress every aspect of our health system.
Are you feeling re-socialized yet? Because I’m feeling brainwashed! Despondency and fearing the worst often precedes skewing one’s reality. But this time there is hope in history. Did we not hear this exact scenario in 1976 when one person purportedly died of the Swine Flu and the vaccine (once again rushed onto the market) used to prevent it injured thousands?
Who should be held accountable if this Swine Flu turns out to be nothing more than a mistake 33 years later? Should Varmus? Should Sloan Kettering? Should vaccine makers? Should anyone, or do we just drop it like we did 33 years ago? It’s amazing to me how we chastised the boy who cried “wolf” yet chalk these sensational scenarios up to “good and caring science and preparedness!”
If nothing else, let this be a lesson in medical transparency to all of us laypeople. If we are guilty of anything, it is trust. I am not saying that this H1N1 flu won’t kill and injure millions of Americans, because I simply don’t know. But neither do those we trust to know. We do know from history that many will be injured by heeding their resolve. We trusted President Ford in 1976, wiped our brows when the drug companies finally developed the “one-dose” (sound familiar?) swine flu vaccine in 1976, and trusted the media that this was “the big one” in 1976. As we sit nervously in our seats today, what has changed?
Once again, we must trust that there are really “experts” who know this 33 years later. And if and when June of 2010 rolls around and this whole swine flu scenario was found to be grossly overblown, just trust me when I tell you that Americans are very forgiving people.
As a matter of fact, the media will resocialize us once again if this blows over. We will be called to honor Dr. Varmus and the 21White House Counselors and even the drug companies for preparing so diligently for this “pandemic outbreak,” given that it could have been the “big one!” We will totally forget 1976 and now 2009 and scientists will begin preparing for the Swine Flu (the big one) of 2044. We will still refer to the many scientists who predicted doom as “experts” and we will elevate them to full chaired University positions because of their brilliance in quickly evaluating what could have been “the big one of 2009.” Now, held in universal esteem, they will assist drug companies in developing even more vaccines for future plagues, be they perceived or real.
I know that not everyone reading this agrees with my skepticism and, for those, I believe that we are only one letter away from each other. When spelling the four-letter word H- -P-E Your letter is “O” and mine is “Y”.
Happy October to you all!
Doug Kaufmann