Private Doctors in Frantic Quest for Flu Vaccine

[steve2470]

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/21/nyregion/21vaccine.html

Dr. Rodney Sherman, an oncologist on the Upper East Side of Manhattan who has 350 chronically ill patients in need of protection against the flu, is giving up on the United States government.

After weeks of trying to get answers as to whether he is in line to get vaccine - and calm his patients' fears - he has decided to take matters into his own hands.

This morning, he is flying to Canada, hoping to buy vaccine, even though he does not know if any will be available.

It is a measure of how desperate private doctors in New York have become. While hospitals, clinics and nursing homes have all been surveyed by the state to determine what they need, private doctors say they have felt ignored.

William Van Slyke, a deputy commissioner of the New York State Health Department, said that while New York's 70,000 private physicians have not been asked what they need, officials at the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta are checking with the two major manufacturers to determine who did not receive vaccine.

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[aquart]

1. Thanks, George. You have left us naked to our enemies.

Did you know that the flu is an enemy of the American people, George? It kills us.

[jean]

2. This is the epitome of incompetence - our docs have to scrounge around

for life saving drugs in short supply because the bush admin is willfully incompetent and morally bankrupt.

What's next - do these docs have to resort to black marketeers? Resourceful repubs can make big bucks on that.

[Moderator]

3. Duplicate

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=921089


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