Last Week's Discussions

So, after a Recitation’s worth of discussion and brainstorming about the two questions, I’ve had my mind changed about one and even more conflicted about another. I initially went into the Recitation firmly against getting the swine flu shot for a variety of reasons. After we discussed the pros and cons of getting the shot however, it was clear to me that it was just reluctance and laziness that contributed to my attitude and I was unable to find any real justifications. A good deal of the cons of getting the vaccine were simply side-effects that went along with getting any vaccine, and as the government estimated no shortage of the vaccine supply once it is implemented the pros (such as immunity and protection) of getting vaccinated to this highly contagious flu seemed to highly outweighed the cons. As for the second question, after more than an hour of discussion I only succeeded in deciding that the question was extremely complicated and difficult to answer due to many moral and practical questions. 500,000 is such a low amount that vaccines that it is almost impossible to decide on a category of people to distribute the shots too. We decided that the best thing to do is to create a number of categories that would qualify for receiving the vaccine such as close proximity to at-risk locations, pregnant women, health care workers, and people with diseases that could result in complications if they contracted swine flu. The people who fit the most of the groups would receive the vaccines first and this method would be used to determine the first 500,000 people. This plan is easier to write down than to execute however and, practically speaking, it is extremely difficult to “rate” people based on their need for something in such low demand. In reality, this plan falls short in the face of corruption (people with money and power getting the vaccine before others), compassion (how do you rate one person in more need over another on relatively subjective comparisons?), numerous other issues, like public reaction to this “application” system of selecting who receives vaccines. In short, this problem is full of complications and moral issues and I wouldn't envy the person who has to make the decision, although I am glad that the dilemma was recognized and discussed; it helped me to more fully understand the complexity of the problem.