I just don't get us. Here we are still debating the 'immorality' of Vodafone's distribution of condoms as part of their marketing campaign on campus.

One priest was apparently so scandalised, he wrote to The Times saying he would be ending his mobile subscription with the company. For all this hullabaloo, you would think they had distributed images of Satan, not condoms.

If only such energy was instead spent on raising questions about more important stuff: such as the impending swine flu vaccines. We were, last week, informed that for a taxpayer's cost of something between €4 million and €5 million, 420,000 doses will be on the way as soon as possible. In case you hadn't noticed, that's a vaccine for each and every one of us; which is a lot, compared with other countries.

Now, I am one who reads the label on food products because I want to know what stuff I'm consuming. Therefore, I would really love to know the make-up of this vaccine before it is injected into my bloodstream.

In Germany, for example, the ones made available to the public have mercury in them but the jabs to be given to the members of the army do not.

Which type is making its way to our islands? Could anyone please enlighten us about possible side effects of these hastily-produced vaccines? Has enough time passed for these side effects to be accurately tested? (Just read/watch The Constant Gardener for more thought provoking aspects on the pharmaceutical world).

It looks likely that once the vaccines get here, the health authorities will be doing their very best to get us to inject ourselves - otherwise it will all be money down the drain. And what's the most effective way to do that? Not through a campaign which would include answers to the above queries, but through a build up of anxiety.

It can already be felt in the air: the dreadful, gnawing, stomach-churning pressure that unless we take the jab we're condemning ourselves to our death-beds.

You see, this is the way society has started operating of late: we are living in an anxious age. If it's not terrorism, it's anthrax in the letterbox, or an avian flu presupposed pandemic.

I've come to believe that governments love our societies to be anxious. It's good for business. Anxious people make good customers and good workers (see the rise of productivity during recession anxiety). And there is nothing like the threat of illness and possible pain to send us all on a panic spree; then anxiety, not reason, will dictate what we subject our bodies to.

I suppose this is a reflection of our attitude to health nowadays: for the merest ouch we rush to the doctor and we are not happy until we are handed a loaded prescription.

The culture of throwing a 'sickie' is dead and buried: we now want to soldier on with our work and falling sick is seen as an impediment to life. This stems from another recent trait in modern societies - we want to remove all pain and suffering from the world.

This reminds me of a Damien Hirst (the British artist) installation some years ago.

It was called Looking Forward to the Total and Absolute Suppression of Pain, in which four television monitors, installed at hospital-room height, blast the viewer with non-stop commercials for painkillers. It highlighted the irony that the solutions to pain are precisely the things that cause the pain in the first place.

Surely, there's no harm in retiring to bed when we're ill, with some broth and some books, to let the body heal itself.

Really, falling sick is the body's way of asking for some respite. Modern society collectively has to come to terms with the fact that life is pain and hardship. So our aim should be to live as well as possible (as opposed to as long as possible). Perhaps we could do worse than follow the advice of Marsilius Ficinus, the renaissance philosopher: "Live merrily oh my friends, free from cares, perplexity, anguish, grief of mind, live merrily."

To do this we have to banish anxiety. Then, accept that pain and illnesses will never leave us. And finally, instead of putting energy and money into running away from pain, we embrace the natural vaccines to a better, healthier life: music, good company, enjoyable work, dancing, wine and sex. And for that we need those, erm, condoms.