Flu Virus Shortage: The Least Interesting Story in the News?

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Maybe it's because my demographic is so unaffected (healthy, strong adult), but I am finding the hubub about this shortage an absolutely mindnumbing snore. The drama of the long lines, old folks camping in front of Safeways as though Bing was doing a one-nighter there... the "scanal" about Chiron, etc.

Can anyone say something interesting about something SO BORING?

(I've never had a flu shot and I don't intend to... they represent weakness to me.)

― andy, Monday, 18 October 2004 17:30 (twenty-one years ago)

"Scandal" that is.

― andy, Monday, 18 October 2004 17:32 (twenty-one years ago)

The news just loves a scare story, that's all.

― Leon Czolgosz in NYC (Nicole), Monday, 18 October 2004 17:32 (twenty-one years ago)

i don't know man the flu kills a hell of a lot of people every year

― ryan (ryan), Monday, 18 October 2004 17:32 (twenty-one years ago)

i have pletny of flu virus rihgt now. who wants some.

― :|, Monday, 18 October 2004 17:36 (twenty-one years ago)

I was about to say, if the flu were an inconvenience, that's one thing. But it DOES kill, and the fact that under a hundred years ago a flu epidemic killed 20 to 50 million people in less than a year's time is not exactly a comforting example, though at least it hasn't been repeated since.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 18 October 2004 17:37 (twenty-one years ago)

I think it's interesting in that it shows how incompetent the current administration is, but yeah, not because the flu is interesting or anything.

― hstencil (hstencil), Monday, 18 October 2004 17:38 (twenty-one years ago)

I haven't had a rip-roaring flu in a decade or more, so maybe I forgotten the drama of it. I've used some sick days, mind you, but only because they don't roll over.

― andy, Monday, 18 October 2004 17:47 (twenty-one years ago)

Er, what's a "flu virus shortage"? Has your government run short of flu viruses to create vaccines?

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Monday, 18 October 2004 17:56 (twenty-one years ago)

I, too, have been completely bored by this story. How is it the administration's fault? I know GWB's answers in the last debate were lame and self-contradictory, but I don't get how it's his/their fault. Explain!!!!

― tobo (tobo), Monday, 18 October 2004 19:49 (twenty-one years ago)

If it's anyone's fault it's ours. We've paid politicians to push through gun control legislation after the election, and now we are weakening you with flu ready to recolonise you.

― Kevin Gilchrist (Mr Fusion), Monday, 18 October 2004 19:50 (twenty-one years ago)

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/17/health/17flu2.html?oref=login

http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/news/news-health-flu.html

"Over the last three and a half years, the Bush administration has ignored a series of flu vaccine warnings and recommendations from the Government Accountability Office, the Institute of Medicine, and others," California Rep. Henry Waxman said in a statement.

― hstencil (hstencil), Monday, 18 October 2004 19:52 (twenty-one years ago)

Andy,

No compassion for Marie Franklin?

Meanie.

― gygax! (gygax!), Monday, 18 October 2004 19:55 (twenty-one years ago)

hstencil -

thanks. in other news, I grew up around the corner from Waxman. Dude needs a nose job, but otherwise he seems pretty right on.

― tobo (tobo), Monday, 18 October 2004 19:57 (twenty-one years ago)

keep in mind that there was a shortage in 2000, so it's not like this hasn't happened before.

interesting stuff from the longer of those two articles:

Dr. Fauci said the Bush administration had increased financing for research and other efforts to fight flu to $283 million this year, from $47 million in fiscal year 2002. Among the initiatives is a $60 million effort to develop new ways to manufacture flu vaccines, which are currently made in a laborious process that requires the use of hundreds of thousands of eggs.

But those sums are small compared with what the nation plans to spend on vaccines against diseases that the government fears terrorists might use. William Schaffner, chairman of the department of preventive medicine at Vanderbilt Medical School in Nashville, noted that the Bush administration last year promised to spend $5.6 billion to help develop vaccines for anthrax and other biological agents.

"They're creating a very expensive program against diseases that don't exist anywhere in the world," Dr. Schaffner said. "What we need is an adult immunization program for diseases that kill tens of thousands every year."

― hstencil (hstencil), Monday, 18 October 2004 20:01 (twenty-one years ago)

"No compassion for Marie Franklin?"

I often stop at that Safeway on my fishing expeditions out to Briones Reservoir... it is by far the poshest Safeway I've been to. If she had to die in a Safeway parking lot, she chose the nicest one.

― andy, Monday, 18 October 2004 20:57 (twenty-one years ago)

So, that would be a "no".

― The Ghost of Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Monday, 18 October 2004 20:57 (twenty-one years ago)

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