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Plea for the Flu: An unfair and flawed business.
Dr. Antonio
M. Gordon, Jr., M.D., Ph.D.
Clinical Professor of Medicine.
Nova Southeastern Univ.
There is a great deal of
interest and resources dedicated to the flu season. Not
only are we facing a changing influenza virus but we
are also threatened by the avian flu that has already
taken 158 lives on the planet. The CDC in Atlanta is
actively recruiting doctor’s offices to serve as
sentinel centers that will report directly to the CDC on
how many patients they see, how many have a flu-like
illness and how many test positive for influenza virus.
Furthermore, what are the features of the circulating
influenza viruses?
The flu vaccines are
designed according to the prevailing virus in the
epidemics that occur earlier in the year elsewhere. The
public health strategy is to vaccinate all persons who
are at high risk of complications and/or acquiring the
potentially morbid flu.
The practice of medicine and
the provision of health care at the primary level have
been changing somewhat rapidly in the United States. The
issue of the flu vaccine has not escaped these changes.
Currently, doctor’s offices, private practices and
outpatient centers are the LAST to receive the flu
vaccines that they ordered and paid for about 10 months
prior. Instead, the places that have proven to be
priorities for distribution of flu vaccine are shopping
centers, and food supermarkets. Even if the latter are
equipped with a nurse practitioner or physician
assistant, it is fair to ask: How are the sickest
patients with chronic lung disease, organ failure and
HIV that do not usually go to buy their groceries
themselves going to get the vaccine early?
In my opinion and that of
others, this policy is equivalent to a serious
discrimination and selective negation to those who are
indeed taking care of the sickest and eventually will be
responsible for taking care of the customers of the
supermarkets, the investors of the industry, and the
common men, women and children who live in this society.
May this plea serve to change a system of distribution
that is flawed and unfair.
October 11, 2006
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