If we cannot guarantee enough flu vaccine

[auburngrad82]

can we trust the government to make sure they have enough anthrax and small pox vaccines to handle a terrorist attack?

[htuttle]

1. How many deaths would constitute a 'major bio-terror attack'?

1,000?
5,000?
10,000?

Consider this: According to the CDC, an average of 36,000 Americans die each year of the flu and over 200,000 Americans are hospitalized by it. Almost all of them are poor and/or elderly without health insurance.

If Osama bin Laden killed 36,000 Americans with a bio-attack, would we be shocked? Would country western singers write songs about it? Would we dedicate a monument to the dead? Sure, probably.

http://www.cdc.gov/flu/keyfacts.htm

[htuttle]

2. And another thing!

When I checked the CDC flu page last year, they were saying about 20,000 Americans die annually from the flu. Now they've upped that number to 36,000, so it's going WAY up (almost double in a year).

How many flu deaths are we willing to accept next year? 50,000 dead? 100,000? Are we going to write songs about them and build a monument to their memory? I think they'd appreciate health insurance instead.

[ArkDem]

3. >Almost all of them are poor and/or elderly without health

insurance.<

Where are the facts on this statement?

[htuttle]

4. Well, that's just a guess -- sort of a deduction

Influenza can normally be treated, and is far, far less lethal if the patient is hospitalized. Given that, I'd guess that most of the people who die are the ones who either wait too long to receive treatment, or never get treatment.

Do you think that the rich and powerful die of the flu very often?

[ArkDem]

5. If they are elderly or have cronic disease (like asthma).

Both of my parents died from flu complications and they weren't poor. Dad was 95 and Mom was 91.

[Blue Wally]

6. Not having enough flu vaccine

was an unforseen kick in the butt just like the hurricanes. The question is now one of intelligent and fair rationing of the available supply.

[realFedUp]

7. Will affect more people than any terrorist act...n/t

[ArkDem]

8. So do automobiles.

[Bridget Burke]

9. The Pharmaceutical Industry would rather direct its energy elsewhere.

Flu vaccine is usually available cheap--or free at some work places. Of course, the employers pay.

But aren't those drugs advertised on TV--many of which will be taken off the market as unsafe--much more profitable for Big Pharm?

[leesa]

10. This is yet another "be afraid at all times" scare. I am already having

people calling in to my doctor's office panicked. It's our government keeping the fear alive and probably a scam to get yet MORE cash diverted to the pharmaceutical and research corporations.
Most people don't need the flu vaccine but we have been conditioned to believe we need it and guess who reaps the profits?

Fear is a great sales tactic!