The Government Is Rationing Flu Vaccines For The Elderly

First government panels of experts tell us that women should refrain from doing at-home breast exams and should postpone mammograms. Now the elderly are being prohibited from getting flu vaccines.
And this is happening without the government controlling health care for us. What happens when they control all of your access to health care?

Two months after H1N1 flu vaccine was first distributed to public health districts around the country, people 65 and older with serious medical conditions still can’t get vaccinated.
Anter’s doctors at Stanford University Hospital, where he received his transplant, tell him he has a compromised immune system and “the H1N1 flu could do me in.”
He takes at least nine prescription medications daily to stay alive.
“But when I try to get a shot, I’m told I’m too old ” he said as he sat in the study of his Peccole Ranch home.
“I feel that they see me and other older people as garbage and are just waiting for the trucks to come pick us up,” Anter said.
“I served my country. I enlisted during the Korean War. You don’t treat people this way just because they’re older.”

If we’re short on vaccines and we need to triage who gets vaccinated and who doesn’t then it makes sense to make seniors wait. It may sound crass, but the elderly have lived their lives. Younger Americans have more life in front of them.
Of course, the elderly are more susceptible to the flu. So, obviously, it’s a tough decision to me.
But for me the question is, why is the world’s superpower running out of flu vaccines? Other than the fact that inefficient government bureaucrats are controlling the supply?

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  • http://Array TheTodd (now with child!)

    Rob: “Of course, the elderly are more susceptible to the flu.”

    Wrong, per your article:

    When public health officials realized last August that the vaccine would be in short supply this fall, they studied the 44,000 cases of the virus that had been reported to the CDC since the outbreak began in April.

    Seniors were affected the least, Fiore said. It appeared that older people have a pre-existing immunity to the H1N1 virus.

    CDC researchers suggested that the immunity older adults appear to enjoy was built up either because they were infected with or vaccinated against an older seasonal flu strain that closely resembled H1N1.

    Americans up to 24 years of age are about 20 times more likely to contract the virus than people older than 65.

  • I don’t like today’s GOP

    Yep! Managing is the problem. Takeover is the answer.

  • lock’em’up

    The Government should take over production and fix this. Good suggestion Rob, thanks.

  • sayanything-4625

    Maybe if your private sector was better at manufacturing the vaccine, we wouldn’t be seeing a shortage.

    Maybe if government regulations hadn’t driven us from 29 manufacturers to 1 with a plant in the US we wouldn’t be in this mess. What a shock!

    American drug companies don’t make useful drugs anymore

    With the government mandating 1/2 price for the first half of each batch it buy’s I find it a miracle that we have anyone making vaccines.

    http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/full/117/6/2269

    Here’s a good article on the subject. I know it won’t make a dent in Dino’s beliefs but for the rest of us its a good read.

  • Rob

    DINO, maybe you should check your facts. The Congress passed legislation that restricted the companies that could legallyt manufacture influenza vaccine (a government created monopoly) and now we are feeling the consequences.

  • sayanything-4416

    I think you mean “Certify” not restrict.

    In your world, the vaccine would be made by shysters in bathtubs.

    Hey, as long as you and yours were the first in line for the “free market” vaccine…..

  • sayanything-4416

    H1N1 seems to be killing young adults at a higher rate.

    Maybe if your private sector was better at manufacturing the vaccine, we wouldn’t be seeing a shortage. They’re probably too bush trying to invent those drugs that make boobs or penises bigger.

    American drug companies don’t make useful drugs anymore.

  • sayanything-15113

    Can you say “death panels”?

  • http://sayanythingblog.com robport

    The government is already managing production…and that’s the problem.

  • sayanything-4416

    The “specifications” have nothing to do with the shortage.

    The private sector failed.

  • http://sayanythingblog.com robport

    The private sector is manufacturing the vaccines under government specifications for the government.

    So nice try, moron.

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