An excellent and appropriate way to celebrate Indigenous Peoples' Day is to get a flu vaccine, because the flu was just one of the many diseases the Europeans gave to the Native Americans when they came to visit-- permanently-- and this "Columbian Exchange" was rather unequal in this regard, as the Europeans also brought over smallpox, measles, chickenpox, whooping cough, typhoid, diphtheria, cholera, malaria, and yellow fever . . . while the only major diease that Columbus and his crew brought back to Europe was a particularly virulent strain of syphilis; in 1495 there was a massive syphilis epidemic in Europe . . . but the Native Americans certainly got the short end of the pathogen stick-- so get a vaccine and combat the spread of infectious diseases through our population!
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