…only makes you poorer?

Just got off the phone with my friendly neighborhood travel clinic, and they regaled me with all sorts of juicy tales of what could happen to me if I don’t get the required shots before going to Morocco. Perhaps they use these tales to justify their exorbitant prices.

Typhoid: 35$
Heps A : 65$
Hep B: 30$
Two required consultations at the clinic: 60$
(Having a work insurance plan that covers this: priceless)

As I recall, the most expensive thing about my trip to Indonesia, after the plane ticket, was all the immunizations and medication. I remember the pharmacist charging me 8$ per pill for anti-malarials, warning me that they may induce psychotic episodes: “If you start feeling paranoid and aggressive, lay off the meds and check yourself into a clinic”. (Years later I did a paper on anti-malarials and learned that it was unadvisable to take the pills I’d taken for more than four weeks. I’d been on them for eleven weeks. Luckily I don’t have to take them for Morocco.)

When you get a vaccine for an exotic disease, they stamp your little yellow WHO-issued international health passport, and it feels like you’ve achieved something. Maybe that’s as good as any other way of choosing a destination: “Gee, I don’t have Yellow Fever in my little book yet!”