Priorities for swine flu vaccine

Usually the elderly are told to get flu vaccines. Maybe we're at no risk for this one--after all, older people die in great numbers in any year from the flu and no one except the family gets too concerned, certainly not the media. However, the Obama health care plan promoted for older Americans pretty much writes them off as not worth anything. At least as recently as 2003 JAMA reported that vaccinating those over 65 was a high priority because it was so successful in reducing morbidity and mortality. Oh well, those were the Bush years and values were different. People mattered. (In 2009, CDC published additional estimates of flu-related deaths comparing different methods, including the methods used in the 2003 JAMA study. The seasons studied included the 1993-94 through the 2002-03 flu seasons. Results from this study showed that during this time period, 36,171 flu-related deaths occurred per year, on average. CDC

"A CDC vaccine advisory panel on Wednesday recommended that first shots should go to pregnant women, household contacts of infants younger than 6 months, health care workers, young people ages 6 months to 24 years and non-elderly adults at high risk for the flu."