Mind Scalpel

Most people don’t know how annual flu vaccines work — or, frequently, don’t work — or, for that matter, why we need to get flu shots every year, when most other vaccines last for multiple years or decades. I’ve found out who to blame.

Each year’s flu vaccines are geared toward protecting you against different strains of the flu virus from the ones they protected you against in previous years, because each year the virus mutates. Flu shots vaccinate you against the three most common strains making their way across the world in a particular flu season.

This, naturally, got me wondering. Where do these new strains originate? Apparently they travel in huge waves, like concentric ripples in a pond, mostly from places where people mingle with waterfowl and pigs – Chinese farms, usually.

Most people would stop their research there. But, never satisfied, I figured hey, if we can triangulate on radio signals and engage in code breaking by using advanced pattern recognition algorithms, shouldn’t it be possible to narrow down the source of new flu viruses with greater precision than a country with a land area of 9,326,410 square kilometers?

Turns out it is. In fact, scientists have located one particular Chinese duck-and-pig farmer named Wen Chen, who is the source of every new flu virus that’s circulated around the world in the past 40 years.

“Oh, heck, yeah, I’m probably the source,” proclaimed Chen proudly, as diseased ducks staggered aimlessly across his vermin-ridden farmyard. “I work hard, don’t have time to wash up, and I like to mud-wrestle with the pigs for exercise. Unlike the old saying, we both get dirty, but I enjoy it too, ha ha!”

Not everyone reacted to the news of this discovery with such a blase attitude, however. Informed about Chen’s role as flu incubator and generator, Brooklyn native Lou Bellanca, who has gotten the flu every year for the past 15 years, immediately called several of his large burly friends, who all booked flights to China to seek out Chen and, in their words, to “explain life to him.” Many other people have apparently followed suit, and China’s national air carriers have been forced to order new jets just to accommodate the sudden increase in traffic.

Informed that “Wen Chen” is the most common name in China, and that it would therefore be extremely difficult to locate the specific flu-propagating Chen, Bellanca said “Don’t worry,” and smacked a meaty fist into his other hand, “we’se got plenty of — whudda ya call it? — motivation. We’ll just take it one Chen at a time.”

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