We’ll be importing 4 million flu shots from Germany.

A cynical man might compare this to the four-plus years that drug importation legislation has failed to get past the White House. Such a man, jaded and bitter, might ask what happened to the President’s concern, expressed so clearly in the debates, that nefarious Indonesians were determined to dose Canadian Lipitor with LSD and turn Miami Beach into a geriatric Haight Ashbury (”Dear Grandma: Thanks for the socks. They’ll come in handy as soon as my legs grow to be nine feet long and sprout extra tentacles…”).

Let’s put aside for a moment the fun problem of these vaccines forcing flus to mutate into ever more deadly forms each year. That’s a more complicated topic, and one that I’m not really qualified to talk about. I mean, I’m anti-flu, sure, who isn’t? But I have a passing understanding of evolutionary pressures, so I’ve got the creeping feeling that by 2020 there will be ferret-sized flu viruses that forcibly pry your mouth open and leap into your lungs. A decade after that they’ll probably be hiring PR firms and launching sophisticated ad campaigns that convince you that you actually want them in your body.

Come to think of it, it wouldn’t be a much tougher sell than “Let’s invade Iraq while letting Osama bin Laden set up a chain of ‘Li’l Qaeda’ daycare centers in western Pakistan.”

Anyway, a cynical man might allege that an administration that steadfastly prevents the re-importation of American drugs and then turns around and allows a German company to send in vats upon vats of an experimental vaccine might not have a lot of credibly, might even be “in the back pocket” of the pharmaceutical companies that mark up drug prices for their fellow Americans while enjoying a bizarre form of protectionism.

A cynical man might say that. Me, I’m advising everyone to dress warmly, drink plenty of juice, and avoid french-kissing chickens for a couple of months. These common-sense precautions oughta get you through.