Cocktail

The Big Pharma adaptation of a Cruise classic that left us forever shaken.

Cocktail.

Remember the movie?

Back when we were young…….our naive hearts full of grenadine dreams!

The plot? Privileged white guys hope to make their fortune on the back of selling cocktails - curious concoctions people don’t need, but tend to go along with just to be sociable.

And life really does mimic art, doesn’t it?

Or did……..until recently.

When I saw the headline that MMR take up was down, I smiled to myself.  Maybe people have finally had enough of cocktails, I mused.

1988, hey?

When doctors were reliable, trustworthy.

They said, we believed.

They’d been to medical school, knew more than us.

Thalidomide Shalidomide!

That was the 70’s, man!

Shit happens, right? They’d learned……

Most of my generation rolled their sleeve up for whatever was offered.

What’s that you say, friendly GP?

Diphtheria? Sure!

TB? Of course!

Rubella? No problem!

Big Pharma’s bitches made Big Pharma riches.

But to blame GPs alone, for being dazzled by the dollar, is to exonerate and ignore others. There was a wide and varied cast, with both plum and supporting roles.

The most effective way to persuade an individual mind of something is to create an attractive ‘groupthink’ and have others buy into it. As the fan base grows, the more it appeals to a human need for belonging.  Said narrative is then boosted by sheer numbers to the point it becomes solid and unchallengeable.  Like a length of wool comprising of lone fibres entwined, the whole is stronger for the sum of the parts. 

And oh, what a yarn was waiting to be spun…..

Tapping into the lucrative potential of vaccines by convincing the masses they needed more of them more often, meant harnessing the system on many levels. Pharmaceutical giants played a long and multifaceted game.

How to create a plausible, concrete groupthink in a field like science which is ‘ever changing’?

You embed your brand and authority at every possible opportunity.

You seed yourself within establishments that train aspiring medical professionals.

You infiltrate the publications they read.

You offer them their first jobs.

You sponsor and bankroll at every chance because each interaction is veiled marketing, investment that will pay off handsomely in future.

You ensure the rising cream is infused with your own rather moreish flavour.

The influenced become the influencers as they then gain top jobs as government scientists and WHO advisors.

And together, they form an impenetrable wall.

Or so they’d counted on……

So why are booster take ups now so low?

Why are fewer parents having their children inoculated?

The answer?

They overplayed their hand and got too bloody greedy.

By the 90’s and 00’s, ‘cocktails’ were getting  noticeably more potent and plentiful.

Happy hour was in full swing.

Hey mums! Why give your precious bundle individual injections when you can have Measles, Mumps and Rubella, all in one?

Yay for triple shots!

But as every barman worth his salty rim knows, less is more.

With Blair’s famous evasiveness over whether his son Leo had received the jab and the controversy surrounding Dr Andrew Wakefield’s concerns over Autism, parents were beginning to wonder if offering their pretties up as pincushions, was all it was cracked up to be.

The final garish straw, the grotesque cherry on top was undoubtedly, ‘Covid’.

Cocktails were now mocktails.

And boy, were we pissed!

Not in the British sense of the word, but the American.

We were no longer squiffy on promise.

We were fucking angry.

Vaxes were knocked up quicker than a celebrity surrogate.  All in the name of ‘emergency’.

We smelled a rat.

“Big Pharma, won’t harm ya, come on pretty mama”

Said Whitty and Co

(To the tune of Kokomo, obviously)

We watched head in hands as friends sported stickers like preschoolers, only for them to then come down with some seasonal shite anyway and utter the now legendary;

“But it could have been so much worse if I’d not had my jab”

The blue NHS Facebook frames once so proudly displayed, were taken down quicker than decs on Boxing Day as it became apparent perhaps the jibber hadn’t been the smartest donut swap, after all…..

But the vax was just the start.

A lid was lifted and we began to see the entire ugly industry for what it was.

It wasn’t about making people well but keeping them just sick enough to generate profit,  creating customers for life.

And once we started digging, we found more and more.

We read about experiments that had exploited minorities, such as Tuskegee.

We found out about how the Swine Flu vaccine had triggered narcolepsy.

We researched ingredients.

What’s that, ‘aborted foetuses’ you say? Yikes!

We started to observe more keenly.

We noticed the way nutrition had been reduced to traffic lights, prizing highly manufactured substances our grandparents would never have touched.

We watched unscrupulous surgeons rub their hands together at the thought of mutilating healthy bodies in the name of ‘gender affirmation’ faster than you could say ‘Cosmopolitan’.

We absorbed, reflected and said ‘No more’, and many of us are now giving the whole sordid industry as wide a berth possible.

We’ve educated ourselves and our families about natural remedies and preventative care.

We have decided to use ‘health’ services on a ‘last resort’ basis.

As the one stop shop became a clot shot shop, Generation X now has little time for syrup.

Our revered elixirs were revealed as nothing more than shoddily made moonshine and our palates are forever changed by the bitter taste of betrayal.

These days, we prefer something straight and undiluted.

We’ve developed not just a liking, but a vehement thirst for one thing only.

Truth.