Blog by Sumana Harihareswara, Changeset founder

15 Oct 2004, 19:37 p.m.

The Vaccine

Hi, reader. I wrote this in 2004 and it's now more than five years old. So it may be very out of date; the world, and I, have changed a lot since I wrote it! I'm keeping this up for historical archive purposes, but the me of today may 100% disagree with what I said then. I rarely edit posts after publishing them, but if I do, I usually leave a note in italics to mark the edit and the reason. If this post is particularly offensive or breaches someone's privacy, please contact me.

A company in Emeryville has a factory in Liverpool that makes a mistake. So half the US's supply of flu vaccine becomes unusable. The sick and the elderly across the US stand in line for suddenly scarce shots. And then back near San Francisco, a 79-year-old artist stands in that line for hours, then faints from the heat and dies.