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Influenza Vaccine Shortage
The greatest success story in modern
medicine has been the use of vaccinations to control and
eliminate disease—a tribute to the English physician, Dr.
Edward Jenner, who started it all more than 200 years ago.
Immunizations are kin to the “finger in the dyke”, referring
to the amount of money spent on the vaccine is considered
trivial to the amount of money spent on treating
complications of infection.
Unlike last year’s shortage of vaccine,
the Center for Disease Control (CDC) and the State Health
Department has assured us of a plentiful supply for this
year’s flu season. The agency has four companies making the
vaccine this year, compared to just two in 2004. Access to
the vaccine, however, has not been as plentiful for many
rural South Dakota physicians and clinics.
According to one state health official,
the makers of the vaccine sent a majority of the supply to
their “best customers”, that being the larger retailers.
These retail corporations are able to buy in bulk, (usually
at a cheaper price), and administer the vaccine to their
customers. In a two hour period, over 100 people received
the shot at a local corporate retail store. At $25 a shot,
they are making a pretty nice profit.
Don’t get me wrong, as a physician, I
am pleased to see large corporations offering the vaccine to
the general public. I feel that everyone in the country
should be vaccinated. (The more people vaccinated, the less
overall virus circulating in the community.) What disturbs
me is the fact that physicians have a limited supply for
their high risk patients, while corporate America can profit
from a vaccine that could save our country billions of
dollars in health care costs treating complications of the
virus in our high risk patients.
Profit may not be the only thing on the
minds of the heads of these large corporations, reducing
sick time by vaccinating their employees first can save
corporate America billions of dollars each year in lost
productivity. Even the State Health Department reserved
their vaccine for state employees first, recently turning
down several of my Medicare patients seeking a flu shot.
After “9-11”, I was hopeful that our
Government would gear up to take on any threat to this
country, including infectious disease. Unfortunately, much
of our resources in the fight against terrorism ended up in
the wrong place. Funding further research into efficient
ways to produce a vaccine and detect disease quickly has
long been under funded and more recently, been cut. This
country must invest in a public health infrastructure, or we
will not be able to respond to real public health
emergencies.
The “Katrina of infectious disease” (Avian “bird” flu) may
be just around the corner. And like Katrina, the response
by our government to prepare for such a devastating pandemic
may be a little too late.
Content
of articles can only be used with writer attribution to Dr.
Kevin Weiland.
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