Vaccinated with lies?
Over the past few months, I, like many women, have been inundated with TV commercials discussing the dangers of contracting the Human Papilloma Virus (HPV). Not only is HPV a sexually transmitted virus, which no one ever wants, but the ads also tell me that HPV causes cervical cancer. As a woman under 26, I should be vaccinated against this increasingly common virus, because, according to the jolly women in the commercials, most people who have it are not aware they are infected.
Initially, I thought this was a great idea. Anything that defends me against cancer is a good thing, right? But then I read a MacLean’s article titled “Our Girls Aren’t Guinea Pigs,” which discussed the dangers of the new Gardasil HPV vaccines, and it caused me to take a step back and review the situation.
In the article, complications, and even deaths, from the vaccine were outlined, and I was amazed with how I had been so blindly influenced by the media. The Gardasil vaccine is clearly not perfect, to say the least, and its testing has been limited. Long-term effects and benefits are not guaranteed…so why was I so eager to roll up my sleeve? Clearly, I am not immune to advertisement-induced brainwashing. But how come this topic affected me so much when smoking, Cheetohs and Ford commercials had failed to influence my spending habits? It was because I felt threatened.
These ads made it seem that if I did not get vaccinated, I would get cancer, and slapping the big C word on this product is a great sales tactic. And I was so worried about cancer that I didn’t even think of the vaccine as a product; but that is exactly what it is. Someone must pay for it, and a company will benefit—and at the moment, Gardasil has a monopoly on Canada’s HPV vaccine market. Threaten and scare the young women into consuming—keep them in fear so that they don’t ask questions, that they don’t wonder what is being injected into their young bodies.
So, when Gardasil tote bags and other propaganda were handed out in the concourse in the first week of classes, I had to wonder who authorized such an obvious marketing ploy. I thought it a strange coincidence that on Tuesday I was reading the MacLean’s article bashing the needles out of the vaccine, and on Wednesday I was holding a doorknob hanger that read, “Do not disturb! Unless you want to talk about Gardasil.”
This product is for “girls and young women aged 9 to 26 years of age.” I am in no way suggesting that women not protect themselves from cancer and STDs, but before putting anything in your body (or your daughter’s), remember to ask the necessary questions to ensure you don’t leave the doctor sicker than when you got there. And also remember that good ole condoms will protect you from more than HPV (when used properly).
So maybe next year the college will hand out something useful rather than tote bags with advertising that tiptoes around its true intent. Condoms at least don’t pretend to be something they are not; they are straight to the point and honest in their presentation, possibly making some people uncomfortable. But Gardasil hides behind its packages and slogans when safe sex is really the message everyone needs to address.
Pull the Plug/A Lighting Chance
An opinion piece that was published in The Other Press:
I find that the more time I spend at Douglas College, the more my resentment grows towards fluorescent light tubes. Glaring down from their parallel fixtures, they force harsh artificial light onto the students below. These lights are ruthless and unflattering, and like rows of soldiers with an ominous purpose they crush the attempts of personal beauty the occupants of their room have tried to conjure. Highlighting imperfections the students thought that they had hidden, the fluorescent tubes of terror prove that resistance is futile against such a secretly malignant, yet inescapable, force.
Perhaps it would not be so bad if the lights in one classroom were consistent. But instead, in any chosen room staff and students will find that different tubes emit a different shade of sickness. Take room 3343 in New West for example. A brighter, more yellow sheen is produced on the left side of the room, which gives any unsuspecting student a lovely aura of jaundice. Yet, on the right, a pinker hue awaits its victims, and with it the false appearance of facial rosacea.
With all this built up resentment towards this specific light source, one may think that I would wish them all an untimely end. However, considering that the lights are all shielded by a protective layer, (no doubt to save them from folk like me), the only other way to defeat them would be to wait until they burn out on their own. But that too poses no resolution, as fluorescent light tubes do not die without a fight. You will never see a tube succumb to old age peacefully, and they will flicker with protest for weeks and months. Not satisfied after a life of harshening features and offering eye-sore induced headaches, the incessant random strobe light effect of an expiring fluorescent tube will try to take the unfortunate people below with it by annoying them to suicide.
Sadly, the fluorescent tube is here to stay, our indoor, electrical society ensuring its survival. And as our dependence on artificially manufactured elements shines brighter, it brings to mind how we will never have a lighting chance against them.
Middle East Infection
The following article was published in The Other Press in October 2006:
Do not get me wrong…
I am a Canadian, and I support our Canadian military troops wherever they may be sent. However, this does not mean I support every mission that may be imposed on the young men and women that are serving a government that may be betraying them. I support the soldiers’ lives and rights, and both are being lost at an increasing rate throughout Afghanistan.
Perhaps the swirling sands of the Middle East have blinded the Canadian government, which would explain why Steven Harper has had to grasp onto George Bush’s hand to lead him though this political storm. But the news reports that relay from Afghanistan counter the Conservative’s call for a continuance of Canadian troops in the area. Even if the media were attempting to focus on any of the positive aspects of the mission, it would be hard to ignore the fact that swarms of the Afghani people are cheering when one of our soldiers is blown up by one of the terrorists that are supposedly plaguing their country. This is not usually how a public shows its gratitude for soldiers whom are giving their lives to aid in their “freedom”. The fact that we have witnessed Afghanis celebrating, instead of building memorials, in the wake of a soldier’s death is a not-so-subtle hint that the mission is fruitless…so why are we continuing to offer more lives to a war where gratitude is scarce and the end seems impossible?
Seeking out the Taliban in the dusty mountains of the Middle East may seem like the proactive approach; and, it would definitely correspond to our anthem’s call for standing on guard for our country, far and wide. But while all of our resources are being worn thin on the other side of the world, doesn’t that leave our homeland open and defenseless? With all money on military matters, do healthcare and other heavy hitting issues get postponed/cancelled?
With each passing day, Canada seems to forget that the continent that we reside in is called North America, not just America, and that the “True North, strong and free” included in our anthem is what separates us from the “rockets’ red glare, the bombs bursting in air” of the United States’ “Star-Spangled Banner”.
Driftwood
The following poem was published in The Other Press in October, and can be found in the self-published book Passion Before Perfection:
Firm, streamlined features
caught up in a swirling storm
Branches fall
Chemically induced nature systematically destroys nature
and the broken nails
in the middle of it all
continue to catch on everything
that they can
Perhaps, they too are just attempting to ground themselves
The hail begins to pelt bodies
that would soon welt
All will not be calm this night
Windows shivering
with the fussing gusts
of an angry wind that will not relent
Rain gliding cars outside
reminiscent
of the ocean’s waves
that rolled across my ears
as I drifted off
amongst driftwood
in a tent on the beach
The storms had been subtle then
Now, at full bore
invading sleep
that they had welcomed
before
Titanic Thinking and a Body of Water
The following poerm was published in The Other Press in October:
Titanic Thinking and a Body of Water
Squinting against one thousand suns
that are glinting from one,
reflecting in water murky enough to stand in.
It’s a wonder any light escapes its surface at all…
The wind arrives and begins its stylist ways,
transforming a perfect hair-do back to its primal state.
Walking through fine sand, in the midst of expelled plumage
and vacant crustaceanic condos,
conversation always seems to ebb away with the tide
and thoughts are drawn into the water,
like the debris that thought it was finally beached
but was caught up in the waves once more.
Doomed, or blessed
to continue drifting,
occasionally reaching a temporary shore
until it becomes so smoothed and refined
by a relentless surf
that it is nothing more than a grain of sand.
No different than the millions of others surrounding it,
just younger,
and they have neither time nor patience for their fellow captive.
Although this may have been the most brilliantly beautiful of stones,
now, as a speck amongst specks, it loses the distinctiveness it may have once had.
It awaits the time when the water will have its way with it once more
and it will be pounded into oblivion…
…looking out as the seagulls
coast along the coast…
The present shakes its way back into consciousness,
and it is pondered
that these are just fruitless thoughts
when one is standing next to a body
that goes a thousand times deeper than any human could.
