Now You're Talking...

 

According to the Media, scientists will be working on getting One vaccine covering all the corona  viruses (flu, sars, mers, covid-19 ).  Sounds good!

Perhaps,  they'll also try to reach the goal of One dose instead of two; One bottle for one dose (not 6 doses out of one little bottle); Vaccination - Once in five years , not once a year or twice a year (the present vaccine for covid-19, is valid for half a year only, and then what? There's talk about a third dose in summer...) 

Now the storage issue, Pfeizer has just announced  -15 degreeC freezing temperature will be enough, no need for -70 degree. Wow! What happened, that's a huge gap! Difficulty with logistics, I presume, fear of losing customers to Moderna, Astra Zeneca, and others...

"Something is rotten in the land of  Science" (  to paraphrase Hamlet's saying on Denmark).

Scientists are only secondary players; they are in the hands of those who fund the research - usually the pharmacy companies -  and play by their rules.  In fact,  they are called  'pharmaceutical scientists'. They spend most of the time in a laboratory, performing tasks related to the research, development, and testing of pharmaceutical drugs.

The pharma companies are good at manipulating and making us dependent on them. The flu vaccine, for example, does not prevent one from getting the flu; it just makes the flu milder, if, and  when one gets it. That's what they promise.  So, we live on promises, and we obediently go for the yearly jab.

Worth mentioning - the mask that we are supposed to wear now for covid-19 is quite effective against the flu virus; almost no cases of flu this year!  Unbelievable!   I probably won't give up the mask ( at least during winter) even if we'll be allowed to do so.

As for covid-19, they tell us the same story : the vaccine causes the illness to be  lighter, and easier to handle.  However, this time - urgency times - in order to encourage people to come and get the vaccine (vaccination open here to all ages), they've  added something of which they are not entirely sure about, namely, that it also prevents spreading of the virus , helps achieving herd immunity, and puts an end to the pandemic.

We're having general elections next month, and , sadly, corona's part of the campaign of all politicians. It looks rather ugly with lots of fake news and disinformation.  Doctors and top Health Ministry officials, are also IN;  after they get the budgets they want for their hospitals, they'll say whatever one wishes them to say. 

Restrictions are being lifted , and there's worry about the outcome. A rise in the number of corona cases is expected by the end of the month.  May God help us!

The Greatest Fear of All ..

Over the years, I've sometimes wondered about the fate of an 11 year old boy kidnapped by his father without his knowing at the time, that prior to  that, the father had already murdered  his (the boy's) mother and grandmother.

Only recently, twenty years later, the boy, now a 31-year veterinary doctor,  married man, and father of a child - has decided to open up on his traumatic story.
(I got to read only the written version, an exclusive interview; haven't watched yet the doco entitled 'Daddy where are my Mom and my Grandma?' created by the journalist - interviewer).

Both parents were scientists at the prestigious Weizmann Institute of Science in the town of Rechovot; they were not married,  but had a court parenthood agreement regarding the boy's  living with his mother and being on certain days at his father's place.

The police had no clue about the whereabouts of father and son. It was the kidnapped boy that finally provided the clue.
Whenever left alone in the hotel room in Bern, Switzerland (fugitive father being busy with getting passports) - he tried and succeeded to dial to the phone numbers of his mother/grandmother in Israel;  these unanswered phone calls were intercepted by the police and eventually led to the capture of the father.

At the trial, the child, still in trauma and tearful, was brought to give testimony , but he refused to do so in his father's presence; he was terrified and unable to face him. So the father had to be taken out of the room.

The young vet has still good reason to be afraid of his father. The latter (sentenced for life) might find a way to get a temporary leave from prison and try to meet "his  boy". So far, his repeated requests for such a leave have been rejected. But... one never knows. The interview, however, ends on an optimistic note.

Somehow, reading  between the lines, I got the feeling that the son's  greatest fear of all was ...genetics. 

We can never predict the right combination of genes that one inherits from mother and father, if at all. As a medical person and son of two scientists, he knows more than we do about that, and I suppose he's, naturally, worried if not for himself, then for his offspring.

They say (jokingly) about money that Money's not all, it's just the One thing.  Genetics, they say (seriously), is not the One thing that determines our future; Environment is also a factor and it can influence our genes and traits.  True, only no one seems to know the proper formula. (By the way, the father grew up in the best environment one could dream of - in one of the most rich and respectable families in the town of Rechovot).