"Vaccine lettuce" and other problems you'll never face in Tennessee
Republicans, having solved all other problems in the Volunteer State, are now keeping their constituents safe from non-existent threats, like celebrity boobs
Life is challenging enough as it is without anticipating problems that aren’t currently problems. So, it stands to reason that expecting the government to anticipate and fix problems before they emerge as such is, in most cases, an exercise in futility. This is because the nature of government is reactionary, not anticipatory. Government bodies generally don’t exist to anticipate and repair problems that don’t yet exist. So, when the Tennessee Legislature decided it wanted to protect the good, God-fearing people of the Volunteer State from “vaccine lettuce,” people asked, “Why?” Others asked, “WTF is vaccine lettuce?”
Why and WTF, indeed? They’re excellent questions because, as far as any could determine, “vaccine lettuce” isn’t even a thing.
This week, the Tennessee Legislature passed a bill mandating that if and when scientists figure out how to put vaccines in lettuce, the leafy greens will be clearly labeled as a drug.
“As introduced,” the bill reads, “defines food that contains a vaccine or vaccine material as a drug for purposes of the Tennessee Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act.”
A reasonable person might ask why should the good, God-fearing, patriotic White Conservative Christian Cisgender Heterosexuals in the Tennessee Legislature concern themselves with a problem that has yet to manifest itself.
And that reasonable person would make an excellent point.
Via WSMV:
Sen. Joey Hensley, R-Hohenwald, spoke during the session about the bill, which he’s sponsoring.
“House Bill 1894 merely would require any food that contains a vaccine or vaccine material would have to be classified as a drug and labeled as such,” he said.
Questioning the bill, Sen. Heidi Campbell, D-Nashville, asked if Hensley knew of any instances where food containing vaccines was offered in Tennessee.
“So does the sponsor know of any instances of there being food offered in the state of Tennessee that contains vaccines and some kind of a retail or public forum?” Campbell asked.
“No, I do not know any specific examples. But certainly they are developing this process. And actually, Congress has actually dealt with this as well and passed an amendment that said no fund could be used for transgenic edible vaccines. This is a process that is being developed. But this bill merely would say that if that happens in the future, that food would have to be classified as a drug if it had a vaccine in it,” Hensley replied.
So, no, it's not a problem. Still, someone out there somewhere is developing this evil process for foisting vaccines upon unsuspecting good, God-fearing, patriotic White Conservative Christian Cisgender Heterosexuals in their food. And you never can be too sure about what those damned Libs are trying to put in our food, right?
You can’t trust ‘em.
Today, they’re not trying to drug us, but tomorrow? Who knows, they might be putting vaccines in our lettuce. Or in our milkshakes. Or…GASP!!!…maybe even in our bourbon.
Oh, the humanity.
Of course, now that the Tennessee Legislature’s talking about it, Republicans are operating under the conviction that the whole idea is just so damned weird that it HAS to be true. How could it not be TRUE? “Vaccine lettuce?” It’s so far “out there,” how could it NOT be real?
It’s not that sensible people aren’t trying to take a common-sense approach to the idea, but this is Tennessee, so it feels like they’re a pronounced minority. It’s a slightly less nutty version of the Texas GOP…but only just.
The weirdest thing here is that they would think it wouldn’t. Like people are out there trying to roofie people’s wedge salads with vaccines they don’t want to take without regard for dosage.
Sen. Campbell also had trouble wrapping her head around how they even thought this would work.
“So while I feel like this legislation’s basically anodyne,” she said, “I mean, I guess it’s addressing something that I can’t imagine would ever exist, which is the idea that we would somehow be putting vaccines into foods that you would buy in a grocery store. I mean, I can’t think of any logical reason why anyone would ever do that. And I do know that, you know, certainly, there have been experiments with putting vaccines in vegetables for the purposes of, of studying possible transmission methods. But the idea that this would somehow correlate to some kind of a retail offering of vegetables, especially when that vegetable would cost, you know, many thousands of dollars, just seems to me, I guess, messy, to be passing legislation for that reason. So I will be voting no.”
Wait…you want to put WHAT on my Caesar Salad? No way, Jose. You take that Parmesan grinder and back the @!#$ away from my salad. No commie lib illegal is going to put vaccines on my lettuce!!
Many thousands of dollars to fix a “problem” there’s as yet no evidence of. Now there’s a sound investment of tax dollars, eh?
Still, one can never be too careful these days.
But Sen. Frank Niceley, R-Strawberry Plains, who I am pretty sure is legally a Simpsons character, shared his concerns that they might just put vaccines in all of the lettuce, like the way they poison our precious bodily fluids with fluoride in the water.
“Actually I’ve been reading about data for a couple of years now and evidently with this new technology, they can raise this lettuce is what they’re talking about first,” he said. “They can raise this stuff so cheap, and I’ve been reading about it talking about putting it in and lettuce and mass medicate everybody, like they do with fluoride in the water. I mean, who could control the dose? If you’re, if you eat a lot of lettuce, you’re gonna get a lot of mRNA, if you don’t eat any won’t get any. And they’re actually talking about other vegetables that they’re trying to put this in. And my question is, would this have to be sold at a drugstore? Would you still buy it in a grocery store? Why don’t we just outlaw this stuff completely? We don’t have any idea what its gonna do to our children? I mean, to us and old people anything? I mean, is this stuff locked out of a science fiction movie? I mean, it’s, it’s ridiculous. It’s changes your DNA, mRNA changes your DNA when if you have your DNA tested now, and you eat a bunch of this, lettuce take a bunch of these MRNA vaccines, and you go back and get your DNA tested again, it’s gonna be a little different. It’s not going to be the same as it was that you were born with that you got from your parents. This is dangerous stuff. We need to study it, probably need to outlaw it. I mean, I can’t imagine. When I first read about this, I thought this can not be true. But you keep reading about it. And it is true.”
What in the blinking man dot gif is he on about?
Who knows? Perhaps such a technology will exist soon, but given today’s political climate, does anyone think the government would introduce (or could get away with introducing) vaccines into our food supply without our knowledge?
On a wholly unrelated but pretty damned hilarious note, Sen. Nicely is the same idjit who once tried to tell an inspiring tale using the life story of…wait for it…Adolf Hitler. He was trying to inspire people experiencing homelessness to pull themselves up by their bootstraps.
Or was it by their gas chambers?
Or maybe he was trying to inspire them to invade Poland, conquer most of Europe, and kill six million Jews? It’s so hard to keep track of these things.
"In 1910, Hitler decided to live on the streets for a while," Niceley, a real, actual human person, said in 2022. "So for two years Hitler lived on the streets and practiced his oratory and his body language and how to connect with the masses. And then went on to lead a life that got him in the history books."
Is there a kind of lettuce we could give Sen. Frank Niceley that would make him say fewer stupid things? Because that I’d be into.
Never mind that they’d have to get it through the Food and Drug Administration’s approval process, most of which is public, before bringing it to market. Then they’d have to convince the crazies, the anti-vaxxers, and the conspiracy theorists that it wasn’t a government plot to make them all impotent (which doesn’t sound like a bad idea).
But, even as Tennessee Republicans are trying to head off the “threat” at the pass, there is exciting research happening regarding at least the development of vaccines that might be delivered in food.
Scientists are studying whether growing lettuce and other foods to produce mRNA vaccines would be possible. This is not because anyone wants to slip a vaccine into anyone’s chicken Caesar wrap surreptitiously but because it could be an efficient (and cost-effective) delivery system.
The importance of this discovery could potentially revolutionize how the world looks at vaccines and how they can be delivered. Not only is this delivery method much easier than injectable vaccines, but it also stimulates the development of mucosal immunity, which offers protection at mucosal surfaces including the lungs. Furthermore, it would allow us to combine injectable and edible vaccines for a more comprehensive immune response and protection against COVID-19 and other viral pandemics in the future. Advantages of this method include the low production cost, since there is no need for a cold chain for distribution, as well as avoiding the use of needles. Eliminating the need for a cold chain would greatly facilitate the administration of vaccines in rural areas and expedite vaccination efforts in developing countries around the world.
This is a good thing! In fact, it would be incredible. To take something like this, an exciting scientific development that could potentially save millions of lives, and turn it into something weird and nefarious is honestly just pretty pathetic.
Of course, there will always be those (the same folks who were convinced that Hillary Clinton and John Podesta were sex-trafficking children out of the basement of a DC pizzeria that lacked a basement) who will assume the worst of any scientific discovery. They’ll “do their own research,” which will involve watching three YouTube videos and reading two Google articles before declaring themselves an “epidemiologist.”
Then they’ll declare that “vaccine lettuce” is obviously made from the fetal tissue of Black children whose parents were compensated by Big Pharma. Of course, nothing of the sort will be remotely true (the kids will have been Hispanic). Still, enough of their argument will reach the mainstream press and be taken seriously by journalists who a) have an axe to grind and/or b) lack essential native intelligence and/or c) hate Big Pharma with the fiery passion of a thousand burning sHoweverwever, th all just speculation because “vaccine lettuce” has yet to leave the research stage.
So, the Tennessee Legislature is trying to fix a problem that doesn’t exist and might never exist, at least in the form envisioned. Having solved all of Tennessee’s other pressing problems (DEI, CRT, drag queens, etc.), “vaccine lettuce” probably seems as good an artificially generated crisis as anything else.
Without the ability to create fear, Republicans would have virtually no role or purpose in American public life. Wouldn’t that be wonderful?
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