H1N1 proves we need massive health care reform -NOW!

[hedgehog]

All summer the focus has been on paying for health care, not on health care itself. So far, we've been damn lucky (knock wood.) While the H1N1 has made a lot of people sick and made them sick ahead of the normal winter flu season, it hasn't turned deadly or caused major economic disruptions. Our main defense against any new disease is mass vaccination. (Sorry, handwashing is not a panacea.) Right now vaccines for both H1N1 and the seasonal flu are in short supply. Although there is a plan to distribute the vaccines nationally, on the ground the distribution seems almost random. My doctor didn't know if or when he would get H1N1 vaccine. He never knows when his seasonal vaccine will be delivered. It's been years since he'd had it before the college kids go back to school. He just hopes he can get it in before his snow bird patients head south in the Fall. Finding a public clinic or a pharmacy offering flu shots is a bit of an Easter Egg hunt. You have to hunt around to find out that the shots will be given out here on this day at this time. Sometimes you can get an appointment, sometimes you just go and stand in line.

Various people in my family are high risk for the flu. My husband got his shot at work in September. I got my shot at the doctor's in October. One kid at college got her shot from college health services in October. Two other kids at another school are still hunting for shots since their college has opted out of offering seasonal flu shots and the area they're in is experiencing a shortage of vaccine, so clinics are being canceled. None of the kids know when H1N1 vaccines will be offered. Meanwhile, H1N1 is spreading rapidly in their college towns.

In short, had this been a real medical emergency, this country would have been screwed.

[DemBones DemBones]

1. WHY do we have vaccine shortages? That's what

I'd like to know. They knew there'd be H1N1 and seasonal flu last spring, if not before. There's always seasonal flu and H1N1 has been looming for years.

My doctor says the manufacturers quit making the seasonal vaccine some time ago and switched to H1N1. He can't get either one. In fact, my city's primary industry is medicine and nobody here has either vaccine available now.

[hedgehog]

2. I'm not sure when everyone agreed on what H1N1 would look like

so that vaccine production could begin. I know I was surprised that no warning flags went up because getting flu vaccine has been iffy in recent years. Sometimes there's a shortage, sometimes the supply is OK. It was only a few weeks ago that the FDA approved a single dose vaccine for H1N1, up until then the thinking was that 2 shots would be needed. In other words, the supply of vaccine now on hand can protect twice as many people as originally thought, and there is still a shortage.

Like I said, if this had been a real emergency, we would have been screwed.