HOSPITALS REFUSE NASAL VACCINE

If there is a significant danger in using live virus vaccines in people that have contact with the sick, why do it? Since the flu doesn't seem to be a huge problem at the moment why would we risk spreading it into the population where it doesn't already exist? I don't get it.

St. Louis County received its first batch of nasal vaccine yesterday and of course it will be distributed first to health care workers and emergency personnel, the people most likely to be around those with compromised immune systems. It seems we are inflating the chance of spreading the virus in the name of protecting the population. Why? Are the people in charge of this program unaware of the concerns expressed by the hospitals below or, are the hospitals wrong to be worried?

Where is the truth concerning this flu and the vaccine? Everyone has a conflicting opinion. Most doctors that I see interviewed seem to say that this isn't that big of a problem, that the swine flu is a relatively mild respiratory infection. Yet the government is going full speed ahead, chancing the spread of the virus in the name of protecting the people. Is this because someone is making big money from this or something more nefarious?

I would really like some clear answers.

"It now looks like Colorado’s first batch of H1N1 vaccine won’t arrive until Thursday.

That’s when an estimated 54,000 doses of FluMist will be doled out to county health departments.

Those departments, in turn, will deliver the mist to hospitals and clinics which have applied for the vaccine.

But several metro area hospitals said they won’t be taking the FluMist because they don’t want to endanger patients.

When asked if that meant that FluMist was dangerous, Lois VanFleet, infection prevention specialist at Exempla Good Samaritan Medical Center in Lafayette said, "No, it's a very safe vaccine in healthy people."

Information Liberation