I had planned on getting a flu shot this year. I even posted about it to hold myself accountable. However, because of the shortage of shots this season, I might not be able to get one — I am in a high risk category for flu, so I can probably still get one, but I’ll have to go out of my way to do so, and I’ll feel like a jerk because I don’t really feel all that high risk. I don’t want to take the shot of someone who really needs it.

Henry Miller has some suggestions for how to make the flu shots go farther, and how to reform the vaccine industry. I don’t anticipate anything coming of the current flu shot crisis, because that would require that our current administration care about and understand the prevention ethos of public health — but I sorely wish something would come of it. Not only will many needlessly die of flu this year, but they’ll also die of meningitis and other preventable diseases, all for want of an FDA approved vaccine.