Culling the Herd?

I've been reading about the so-called "swine" flu that has hit Mexico, the U.S. and now Spain, New Zealand, and a few more places. As reported in the press, the responsible virus has components from three continents and from three types of animals--human, bird, and pig. To my thinking, it seems highly unlikely that something like this would develop on its own, without the assistance of government and pharmaceutical-company labs.

Now before you stop reading, consider that not too long ago, Baxter International had shipped out flu vaccine containing avain-flu virus. A simple matter of sloppy work as is often seen in food processing when components used in one food product inadvertently contaminate a batch of some other food product? That might be a plausible explanation, if only that a pharmaceutical company is not supposed to be in the business of manufacturing pandemics.

The Baxter story was not covered in this country, though it was widely reported in Europe and Canada. Once again, the U.S. is in a news bubble.

And guess what, folks--Baxter is working on a vaccine for this latest "swine" flu. Oh, great, the same company that tried to start a pandemic less than a year ago by manufacturing tainted vaccine now has the contract to make a second go of it.

Though this story is disconcerting for anyone, it is especially so for me, as Baxter is also the manufacturer of my dialysis supplies. Everything from the solution to the tubing. What I've wondered since discovering all this: Is Baxter "culling the herd" by adding something toxic to the dialysis solution, something that wouldn't kill a patient outright--she needs to be kept alive for some time to generate income for the pharmaceutical giant--but would slowly work against the body over time?

This whole notion of culling the herd has been around for quite some time. My first exposure to it was about 20 years ago. On one level, it makes sense. The world has way too many people, and a whole lot more are coming. Our resources are finite; no new timber, oil, or land to grow crops are entering our world from some other planet. What we've got here and now is all there is. The only solution is to cull the herd. Of course, the more benign approach would be to prevent births in the first place, take care of the problem on the front end. This could be done through tax disincentives for having more than one or two children or incentives for voluntary sterilization. I mean, seriously, why are the tax laws still designed to reward big families? That might have been a fine idea 150 years ago when this was a young country and lots of kids were needed to do farm chores. But that's not the nation we are currently living in.

The really spooky thing about Baxter is that, every time I would call the company to place an order or check on the status of an order or get tech support, this awful, sappy music would play while I was on hold. Always the same annoying song. I complained several times, but nothing happened. Then I started telling the rep that if I were shooting a horror film about forced euthenesia, I would use this song as background music. "It's music to kill by" was the message I left on a supervisor's answer machine. That must have struck a chord with Baxter because about a week ago--before the outbreak in Mexico--I was informed the company is changing the music.