Categories: Need to know

Remember the regular flu shots?

Critic says Ottawa should have stopped producing that vaccine to concentrate on H1N1

by macleans.ca on Monday, November 9, 2009 10:46am - 1 Comment

A persistent critic of the way federal health authorities have handled the H1N1 pandemic says the biggest mistake was keeping on producing vaccine for the ordinary seasonal flu, even after it was a good bet swine flu would be this fall’s big problem. Dr. Richard Schabas, Ontario’s former chief medical officer of health, argues a “courageous decision to follow the evidence” would have cancelled normal flu shot production and delivered enough H1N1 vaccine several weeks early. But other experts say it wasn’t obvious the regular flu would all but vanish, as it has, as H1N1 came back hard this autumn. So the debate, and the blame game, continues.

Ottawa Citizen

http://intensedebate.com/people/VinceClortho VinceClortho

This is what the controversey is about, 2-3 weeks with the tradeoff being there was no seasonal flu vaccine.

Can you imagine the government having to answer for that one in th house. I can hear Carolyn Bennet now.

"this is serious! The government left a vaccine factory idle for 3 weeks and millions of seniors vulnerable to serious infection. Over 4,000 people per year die of seasonal flu, what part of this does the health minister not get?"

Or something to that effect is being asked right now in a parallel universe.

Anyway, that is your tradeoff, the existing situation versus one where there would be oodles of H1N1 and no seasonal flu shots.

Another way to put it, shots available to the most vulnerable for H1N1 and all who want it for seasonal flu, versus no protection from seasonal flu and all covered for H1N1.

Life is full of tradeoffs like these.