Just to be clear, I enjoy a good conspiracy theory as much as the next person and, as I spend a good deal of time with my husband the communist and my parents, the super-liberal and the skeptic, I am also especially well disposed to a great deal of distrust for anyone who stands to make money from a negative situation. All of this considered, I would love to believe that the H1N1 vaccine is some international conspiratorial plot to either a) fill tax paying citizens with mercury and poisonous neurotoxins or b) turn out the near-empty pockets of a world economy choked by recession for those last few coins and some lint. But no matter what I read or hear, I just can’t make the leap.

The public is outraged about reports that Citi, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Morgan Stanley along with other big New York employers, received hundreds, even thousands, of H1N1 vaccine doses before hospitals and other healthcare providers, many of which have run out of the precious drug. For Goldman Sachs, accused of unfairly benefiting from government bailout funds and its close relationships with administration officials, the problem is especially acute. Jokes are already circulating on Wall Street about how Goldman will create derivatives out of the few doses it has and begin trading them.

That’s right, for those of you who lined up last week for 6 hours on average, you suffered their stupidity, all in the name of optic’s. Yep, they wanted to look like they knew what they were doing, and they wanted to look good doing it.

Around this time of year, the public is encouraged by government to receive their flu shots. According to the scaremongers, however, the vaccine will either kill you, maim you or induce serious disorders like autism or Parkinson’s disease. Delayed or incompetent distribution aside, do people really believe that the government is deliberately trying to poison the electorate with the vaccine? If the electorate is decimated, who will be able to vote for them? November 22 is of course the anniversary of President’s John F. Kennedy’s assassination. So around this time of year we hear a lot of conspiracy theories.