Writer's Almanac Today

The poem read on today's Writer's Almanac, originally published in JAMA last year, made me think of the work we do in CTS. I share it for your reflection:

Myth Dispelled

by Adam Possner

The flu vaccine cannot
give you the flu, I tell him.
It's dead virus, there's
nothing alive about it.
It can't make you sick.
That's a myth.
But if we bury it in
the grassy knoll
of your shoulder,
an inch under the stratum
corneum, as sanctioned by
your signature
in a white-coated ceremony
presided over by
my medical assistant
and then mark the grave
with a temporary
non-stick headstone,
the trivalent spirit
of that vaccine
has a 70 to 90 percent
chance of warding off
the Evil One,
and that's the God's
honest truth

"Myth Dispelled" by Adam Possner, from JAMA, December 5, 2012. © American Medical Association, 2012