The headline said, "Vaccination plan puts health care workers first," but you had to read the article to find out who goes next: the military. This according to the Guidance on allocating and targeting pandemic influenza vaccine released yesterday by the US Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS). The guidance is premised on the assumption that in the early phases of a pandemic, any vaccine will be in short supply and will need to be rationed. The document gives "strong advice" on how DHHS thinks this rationing should take place, although much is left unexplained. Since the allocation to states will come from a national stockpile, the strong advice will have some weight. Moreover, some of the vaccine will be taken "off the top" for federal government use and this will not be subject to any decisions downstream. And some of the federal allocations appear to us to be highly questionable: Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post... ...
Anytime
