Parepin is the brand name for a man-made drug that is also sometimes referred to by its generic name, zeridine. Developed in a groundbreaking partnership between a major pharmaceutical company and the National Institute of Health, Parepin is a complex drug that bootstraps the immune system. Parepin is a revolutionary drug made possible by the advances in medical technology from the study of AIDS and other immune diseases. While antibiotics target bacteria and antiviral drugs target viruses, Parepin is not designed to combat a specific disease or set of diseases. Instead, it makes the body better able to combat all disease.
In the World Of Year Zero, Parepin has been introduced into water sources all over America. The government claims it is to increase the citizens' immune system and protect them from biological terrorism. Apparently the drug may do a lot more than just boost the immune system. Apparent side effects are: an alteration of dopamine and serotonin levels (Drugs like Cocaine, Meth, and Opal do this, while no immune system booster, anti-biotic, or anti-viral does), muscle spasms, inability to reach orgasm, complacency, dulling of emotions, to name a few. However, studies showed that it made no difference in combatting diseases and providing protection in the event of a terror attack, leading some to conclude that the real reason it was added to the nation's water supply was to keep the populace complacent with their environments.
Parepin "bootstraps" the immune system. Why use this word to describe Parepin? Maybe bootstrap is meant to reference something else.
In the English language, to pull one up by one's bootstraps means to assist oneself by one's own means, without outside help or intervention. Bootstrapping, likewise, means to help oneself without outside intervention; Parepin, then, may be promoted as an item that helps the human immune system to assist itself rather than requiring the intervention or help of modern medicine.
Bootstrapping (science fiction)
In science fiction, to bootstrap a culture is to give it technology until that culture is technologically equal or close to equal to one's own culture. An example of this can be seen in the video game series Star Control, in which the Yehat bootstrapped the Shofixti.
Operation Bootstrap ("Operación Manos a la Obra") is the name given to the ambitious projects which industrialized Puerto Rico in the mid-20th century. Teodoro Moscoso is referred to as the architect of Operation Bootstrap. Under this program, which began in 1948, the island became increasingly industrialized. Envisioning that a densely populated island like Puerto Rico with now over 1000 persons per square mile, could not subsist on an agrarian system, the government Departamento de Fomento encouraged the establishment of factories. Puerto Rico enticed US companies by providing labor at costs below those on the mainland, access to US markets without import duties, and profits that could enter the country free from federal taxation. Fomento invited investment of external capital, importing the raw materials, and exporting the finished products to the U.S. market. To entice participation, tax exemptions and differential rental rates were offered for industrial facilities. As a result, Puerto Rico's economy shifted labor from agriculture to manufacturing and tourism. The manufacturing sector has shifted from the original labor-intensive industries, such as the manufacturing of food, tobacco, leather, and apparel products, to more capital-intensive industries, such as pharmaceuticals, chemicals, machinery, and electronics.
The bootstrapping rule in the rules of evidence dealt with admissibility as non-hearsay of statements of conspiracy in United States federal courts. The rule was that, in a criminal prosecution for conspiracy, the court, in deciding whether to allow the jury to consider a statement of conspiracy, cannot hear the statement itself, and that the allegation should be supported by independent evidence. If the independent evidence convinced the court that a conspiracy probably existed, only then could such a statement be introduced into trial and heard by the jury. Allowing such statements of conspiracy to prove the existence of conspiracy was considered similar to bootstrapping. In the United States, the bootstrapping rule has been eliminated from the Federal Rules of Evidence, as decided by the Supreme Court in the Bourjaily case.
In law, bootstrapping can also refer to an attempt to gain jurisdiction over a non-jurisdictional matter through its circuitous relationship to a jurisdictional matter.
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bootstrapping_%28law%29"
I Am Trying To Believe
The first site discovered, www.iamtryingtobelieve.com, contains the following information on Parepin. This site clearly offers a subversive perspective of Parepin, one not espoused by the government in the world of Year Zero.
Other References To Parepin