13
Oct
Oct
NautyRN asked:
In the next influenza pandemic, should a 60-year-old woman with heart disease and asthma receive a flu vaccine before a healthy 4-year-old?
P.S. I’m not a republican
Psoriasis
In the next influenza pandemic, should a 60-year-old woman with heart disease and asthma receive a flu vaccine before a healthy 4-year-old?
P.S. I’m not a republican
Psoriasis
Tags: Flu, Influenza, Next Influenza Pandemic, Old Woman, Vaccines
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on Monday, October 13th, 2008 at 5:18 pm and is filed under Infectious Diseases.
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3 Responses so far to "How should vaccines be rationed?"
October 14th, 2008 at 5:57 am
Forex Robot Check this Out NOW$
boy OH boy you’d make a GREAT republican.
democracy doesn’t appeal to you does it?
October 14th, 2008 at 10:08 pm
Psoriasis Cream
Hi,, hmm,, naughty,, I agree with you.. and see where your coming from.. probably we would go with the child instead of the older person…. if need be…
Good luck …..you bad girl you !!!!
October 16th, 2008 at 3:34 am
Say Goodbye to Psoriasis
There is no easy answer for this. I work in public health, and this is a decision we struggle with.
First, you have to consider the biology of it – should we give a vaccine to someone that is incapable of mounting an immune response, or can only mount a poor one? This simple answer is that it doesn’t make sense to do so, but that would mean we never vaccinate older people or those with AIDS. That brings me to the next point – politics. The political climate makes many of the decisions for us, with science and logic going out the window. Another consideration is when we look at the vaccine solely as a preventative approach – if we vaccinate people who are most likely to spread disease, we would maybe do more to stop an outbreak. For example, it might make more sense to require the nursing home staff and visitors to be vaccinated, rather than the residents (who can’t mount a very good immune response to the vaccine). Finally, there is always the question of the “worth” of a person. You can look at it in many different ways (potential future earnings, projected years of life left, “value” of that person’s survival), and get many different answers. That is one area that ethicists have been arguing for centuries, and I don’t think I have an answer to.