Boo Hoo. Swine Flu? Me Nervous! You Too?

A Nod (and a bow) to Hamlet's Soliloquy

by William Shakespeare, Act 3, Scene 1

adapted by Susan Noyes Anderson

To vaccinate, or not to vaccinate. That is the question:

Whether 'tis wiser in the body to suffer

The slings and arrows of outrageous swine flu,

Or to take aim against a sea of disease

And by immunizing, squelch it? To sneeze; to cough;

No more; and by a cough to say we've filled

The body with the thousand porcine germs

That flesh is heir to, tis a consummation

Devoutly to be shunn'd. To sneeze, to cough;

To cough: perchance to wheeze: ay, there's the rub;

For in that wheezy cough what chills may come

When we are fevered on this mortal coil,

Must give us pause: there's the respect

That makes calamity of our decision;

For shall we bear the flu shot made in haste,

By scientists spurred on by time constraints,

The pangs of politics, the law's demands,

The insolence of office and the spurns

That patient merit of the process takes,

When we ourselves might bow for swine flu's sake

Without protection? who would headaches bear,

To grunt and sweat under a sickness foul,

Amidst the threat of something fouler still,

The undiscover'd side effect, from which

No Traveler returns, puzzles the will

And makes us rather bear those ills we have

Than fly to others that we know not of?

Thus the unknown makes cowards of us all;

And thus the native hue of resolution

Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,

And vaccinations of great pitch and promise

With this regard their currents turn awry

And lose the name of action. ––Think you now!

The shot? The risks! The flu? The sickness stalking,

The doctors disagreeing.