Flu Shots
A Harvard School of Public Health press release says this:
The date of this press release is December 23, 2003!
This year, British inspectors prevented Chiron from delivering any of its 48 million doses of this year's flu vaccine, leave the US with a little more than half of its expected number, which was about 100 million doses. But we have a population of a little under 300 million people. Why was there supposed to be only one dose of vaccine for every three of us? Well, most of us don't get one. Last year, approximately 12 million doses were thrown away because they went unused. (Each year's flu vaccine is different to account for different strains.)
Is it possible that by creating this hype and rationing that the total number of seniors who get a flu shot will actually go up? There are less than 40 million people in the US over 65, and last year 73% of them got flu shots. So something like 60 million people under 65 last year got flu shots, and as Havard reports the at risk people weren't getting them. Could the shortage of vaccines this year actually save lives (ignoring people like the woman in California who died waiting in line to get her shot of course)? If seniors got flu shots at the same rate as last year, that would still leave nearly 25 million doses for people who are at risk. I guess there may be more total cases of the flu attributable to the vaccine shortage this year, but the increase would be skewed toward those who better able to fight off the infection.
There is of course a factor unknown to me--the number of people who are like my mother, healthy but who get one early in the year anyway.
The latest national poll conducted by the Harvard School of Public Health Project on the Public and Biological Security finds that a significant number of Americans at high risk of serious complications from the flu have not gotten a flu vaccine this season. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) highly recommends the vaccine for certain high-risk groups including people with chronic illnesses, children between the ages of six and 23 months, and people aged 65 and over. Nearly half (47%) of people with chronic illnesses have not had a flu vaccination in the past three months. In addition, more than three-fourths (78%) of parents report that their children ages six to 23 months have not received a flu vaccine so far this season. This is the case even though the vaccine recommendation for these young children is widely known by Americans (74%).
The date of this press release is December 23, 2003!
This year, British inspectors prevented Chiron from delivering any of its 48 million doses of this year's flu vaccine, leave the US with a little more than half of its expected number, which was about 100 million doses. But we have a population of a little under 300 million people. Why was there supposed to be only one dose of vaccine for every three of us? Well, most of us don't get one. Last year, approximately 12 million doses were thrown away because they went unused. (Each year's flu vaccine is different to account for different strains.)
Is it possible that by creating this hype and rationing that the total number of seniors who get a flu shot will actually go up? There are less than 40 million people in the US over 65, and last year 73% of them got flu shots. So something like 60 million people under 65 last year got flu shots, and as Havard reports the at risk people weren't getting them. Could the shortage of vaccines this year actually save lives (ignoring people like the woman in California who died waiting in line to get her shot of course)? If seniors got flu shots at the same rate as last year, that would still leave nearly 25 million doses for people who are at risk. I guess there may be more total cases of the flu attributable to the vaccine shortage this year, but the increase would be skewed toward those who better able to fight off the infection.
There is of course a factor unknown to me--the number of people who are like my mother, healthy but who get one early in the year anyway.
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home