Senior citizens are questioning the H1N1 vaccine controls that have them prioritized below younger age groups, with some even calling it an example of healthcare rationing. ACSH Advisor Dr. Marc Siegel of the NYU School of Medicine addresses the difficulties caused by the vaccine shortage in today's Los Angeles Times.
"It's not government rationing," says ACSH's Dr. Gilbert Ross. "You can call it triage if you want, but if you have a very limited number of flu vaccine doses, you have to decide who to give it to. With the H1N1 flu, it has been demonstrated that people over the age of sixty-five are much less likely to come down with it than younger folks, so younger people have been prioritized. It is technically rationing, but it's not because the government is ruling who gets medicine from on high, it's because pharmaceutical companies were unable to meet the demand in time. The virus simply didn't grow fast enough."
"The ultimate tragedy is that there are so many who want this vaccine right now, yet we will most likely be discarding hundreds of thousands of doses when people no longer want it in the spring," says ACSH's Dr. Elizabeth Whelan. "That is usually the case with the seasonal flu vaccine."