True to her title, Dr. Henry, the director of Public Health Emergency Management at the B.C. Centre for Disease Control, errs on the side of common-sense, underplaying the book’s more interesting purpose: to criticize the developed world’s pharma-dependence.

To ground her pro-sanitation proselytizing, Henry provides a deeply researched but conversational and anecdotal history of our evolving understanding of the flu: Snow, the cartographer of cholera; Jenner, the inventor of the vaccination; Pasteur and Koch, who laid to rest the “bad air” theory; salmonella, the foodie bug; Fleming, the penicillin man, and others. But from a doctor on the front lines of the H1N1 pandemic, and who served as the senior Canadian consultant to the World Health Organization during the 2000 Ebola outbreak in Uganda, one might have expected insight gleaned from rare experience rather than a retelling of what we already know.

As an elderly person, Santa was fast-tracked for the H1N1 shot.

Dear Progressive Detective: I’m afraid of needles. Is it okay if I skip my flu shot?

Sorry, but in the Progressive Detective’s opinion, belonephobia, the fear of needles, is no excuse for skipping this oh-so-important vaccination.

The obvious reason for getting it is to avoid illness. While it’s easy to scoff at the flu, it’s actually serious business. Every year an estimated 4,000–8,000 Canadians die from this disease, which can cause life-threatening conditions such as pneumonia and respiratory failure. The flu can wreak havoc on your bankbook, too. The illness’s expected fever, severe headaches, and chest congestion are likely to knock you out for several days, so unless you have sick leave, you’ll be feeling the flu’s impact on your wallet long after the pain of a needle would have faded.

But the most important reason for getting stuck is to protect those around you, especially people at high risk of flu complications: children, the elderly, and anyone with a compromised immune system. Getting the flu shot leaves you less likely to pass the virus on to someone who didn’t (infants under six months of age and anyone allergic to its components should not get the shot) and contributes to the phenomenon known as herd immunity: the more people immunized, the less likely those who skipped the shot are to get sick (and the less taxing flu season is on our health-care system). However, herd immunity requires a critical mass, so getting the flu shot is the socially responsible thing to do.

But if you truly cannot get over your fear, be extra vigilant with the precautions you should already be taking to prevent the flu: wash your hands frequently, avoid crowds, and cover your mouth when you sneeze. You should also steer clear of any at-risk loved ones, even if it means sitting out some holiday parties.

One final note: the seasonal flu shot will not protect you against the H1N1 virus (swine flu); you’ll have to get a second shot for this.

With swine flu in the air, the Calgary Flames went to the front of the line. Are they the mythical "Second Tier"?

[Editor’s note: today we introduce “Body Politic,” a new blog column about medicine and public health, written by Lyndsie Bourgon. Visit her website or follow her on Twitter. Body Politic will appear every other Thursday.]

As the Calgary Flames hit the ice this weekend they appeared to show no great superpower, which is what I was hoping would happen when they got their H1N1 shots before the rest of us.

Both the Flames and Maple Leafs made the news for stepping ahead of the pregnant, young, old and needy for flu jabs recently, and in doing so they became unwilling examples of what could happen if a two-tiered health care system were adopted in Canada — that is, if it hasn’t been already.

As flu clinics were overwhelmed and shutting down in Calgary’s Brentwood community, the Flames and 100 of their closest associates and family members lined up for the shot separately. And it’s no surprise that it’s an Alberta team that was one of the first to get caught asking for a preferential care during a global pandemic.

Alberta’s health care policy plays an important role in the debate surrounding two-tiered health care in Canada. For years Albertan politicians have argued that the “third way” of health care could be the saving grace of a backed-up, overwhelmed medical system. What better way for the privileged to get the care they need than by paying for it? And those poor people can still receive their public option, too.

Officials fired the two top health care workers related to the case, and Ontario is “investigating” how players received the shot. But it was Alberta Liberal opposition leader David Swann who hit the real issue:

“It’s a failure of leadership that we are providing vaccines willy-nilly to whoever has money, to whoever has access, when cancer patients, when chronic lung patients, when pregnant women and their children can’t get it… It’s a violation of the basic principles of public health care.”

While it’s true that two-tier health care could theoretically relieve some strain on the health care system by lessening wait times and work loads at public facilities, the H1N1 vaccine debacle shows what’s likely to happen when the idea is exploited in Canada — during true medical emergencies, those with enough money will trump those who are in true need of treatment that cannot (or will not), for whatever reason, jump the line.

But who can blame them? What’s wrong with this scenario is not just that the Flames or the Leafs decided to hunt out the H1N1 shots for themselves. It’s the idea that players are somehow socially exempt from waiting in line with us common folk because they can pay for something more. It’s the same treatment that skips them to the front of months-long wait lists for MRIs and reconstructive surgeries.

Hockey might be our national pastime, but our players shouldn’t be treated like superheroes when it comes to the health system.