I used prophetic as well. I meant, I felt as if pp felt she was telling us something we didn’t already know. When I saw the OP I was already saturated with spam-like news of this flu and had looked into it enough to see that it would probably never affect me unless people started freaking out about it. That’s how witch trials and bad legislation come about.

There are technically “new” flus all the time (but one and only flu flu, fat lazy union). I’ve never had a flu shot and probably never will because I think that today’s vaccine only applies to yesterday’s flu mutation. So no, I wouldn’t get the vaccine for this swine version and I agree that sometimes you need to weigh the benefits of entering our medical system vs. the potential health risks.

For example, I had a mole removed and it was stitched up so badly by the doctor that it formed a small abscess which became infected. Now there’s a scar, much uglier and bigger than the mole was. If I hadn’t had that mole removed (as a preventative strike against melanoma) I wouldn’t have gotten that infection. I don’t think I would have gotten melanoma either. I regret the decision to remove it. When I saw what was billed to my insurance, I clearly understood why the doctor wanted to do it.