Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq

News of the Swine-Flu started drifting into the media back in April of 2009. It very soon began to seem like it was much noise about not much. Then it returned to the airwaves and started hitting all of us hard in early October as the date for the federal roll-out of a newly developed vaccine approached. One would imagine that the Ministry of Health would follow their own directives, as listed on their “About Mission, Values, Activities” page. Pay particular attention to the third sub-heading under “Core Values – Our Values in Action,” which is entitled, “Caring for the People of Canada.” (take a minute to click the link and read that one section). There’s talk about advancing the public good, as well as the provision of credible information and reliable advice – presumably to that same public. But what has actually happened falls rather short of the Ministry’s espoused ideals.

The Federal government, as represented by Canadian Health Minister, Leona Aglukkaq, told Canadians on October 21st, “I’m happy to say that today Health Canada has authorized the H1N1 flu virus vaccine,” and on October 25th, “I encourage Canadians to get the vaccine to stop the pandemic”. I live in BC where the H1N1 virus hit hardest, the clock is still ticking, people are still dying, it’s October 30th, and my family is still unable to get the vaccine. Unfortunately, or fortunately (I won’t know until the grim reaper has completed his grisly harvest), we’re not in a high risk category, so if we die, well, that’s just taking one for the team, don’t you see.

I have to wonder about the wisdom of an elected official who trumpets the virtues of the Conservative’s mass inoculation program, gets all of Canada’s attention in the process, and then doesn’t have the goods available for us to follow through with her advice? If that wasn’t enough, when she does decide to let us in on what’s going on with the H1N1 vaccine distribution, confusion abounds because of the adjuvant and non-adjuvant types. Not being a virologist, I am left unsure as to what my course of action aught to be; do I get myself and my family vaccinated with this new vaccine whenever it does actually become available – and if so, is the adjuvant or non-adjuvant one better? Or do I have less to fear from the H1N1 virus itself?

There’s more than enough lunacy circulating on the Internet to keep any conspiracy theorist happy and over-worked. What’s difficult to uncover, however, are the basic facts and statistics regarding the H1N1 virus, and what we can do if we contract it. The Ministry of Health is responsible for all Canadians’ welfare, and aught not to be in the business of stirring up hornet’s nests. Because Minister Aglukkaq is the one charged with running this operation, I think she should extend an apology to all Canadians for unnecessarily scaring the you-know-what out of them. By raising the battle cry and not having the suggested armour ready for us, Aglukkaq has only fuelled our fears. After apologizing, she needs to do her best to clean up the mess she has helped create. She should render the situation to us in an orderly and unbiased fashion so that we may take some comfort from knowing the truth from the many fancies of fiction that are spreading through the Internet and into the hearts and minds of many Canadians in every bit as virulent a manner as the H1N1 virus.

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Tags: h1n1, leona aglukkaq, ministry of health, swine flu

This entry was posted on Friday, October 30th, 2009 at 7:03 pm and is filed under health. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.