Nov. 27, 2001 - 19:49 MST

THE WONDERING JEW

Reason

Figure finaglers are at it all the time it seems to me. The most recent I have noticed was in The Rocky Mountain News today. A Head lined column, "The Risks Of Mass Vaccination," makes me wonder which figures are right -- if any -- among the ones quoted. Says Bush administration is planning to increase our country's vaccine stock (smallpox) from enough to innoculate 15 million people to enough to innoculate 300 million. In the same article it says that it is estimated that mass vaccination of our populace could cause 300 deaths and make many times that number ill. . . . . .

Anybody with a calculator handy that can deal with figures in the hundreds of millions? Percentage wise that would give a percent in the thousandths of one per cent. And how many people of our population would be made ill by vaccination and/or would die of the small pox if it got loose here?

Of course things like that are published with 'good of the people' in mind. Red faced, desk pounding, spittle spraying rhetoric seems to attempt to exaggerate the supposed importance of the loss of a few people against the need for the wellbeing and safety of a whole nation.

I deplore the loss of any human life. However nowadays permission sheets have to be signed before most innoculations or surgical procedures because death can ensue from anything introduced into the human system or cut into or out of the body. Of course the percentages are low, otherwise another kind of treatment would have been devised long ago.

Would I have a smallpox vaccination if it were offered me? You are blessed right senor. I would much rather risk the after effects of a vaccination than suffer the illness of smallpox.

In the same article it is said, "To begin with, the chances of an attack (with small pox) are reported to be miniscule," no damn figures quoted there there, was there?

Some times after reading one of those figure riddled articles I sit back and wonder, just what is this group, this columnist, this organization or whoever trying to prove and to what end? But the most important question in my mind is, just how low is the estimation of pee the weoples intelligence that they should attempt to shovel that junk our way?

What little intelligence I have is gravely insulted by their attempt to snow us under with distorted figures.

So, as usual, I hear what they say, but just what the heck do they really mean? What is the hidden agenda? They should be held accountable for psychological terrorism to my way of thinking on this small pox vaccination thing. Behind every figure laden article, sometimes hidden from us there is a REASON . . . . . . . . .

Blog