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Georgia flu scandal

By | October 26, 2008, 8:56am PDT

Summary: Millions of Georgians will not get the flu shot. Some will get sick. Some will die. And this year’s flu will have a rich vein of victims in which to grow strong.

Jean Sumner, chair of Georgia Board of Medical ExaminersThis morning I innocently stumbled upon a scandal where I am one of the victims.

I live in Georgia. For many years my wife’s employer, the local Costco, and even my local pharmacist have been giving out the annual flu shot. So I called to make an appointment.

No can do, my pharmacist said. Apparently the Georgia Board of Medical Examiners decided this year, in its wisdom, that no one but a doctor can authorize the flu shot.

They actually called the flu shot “a dangerous drug.” On 9-11 no less:

On Sept. 11, the Composite State Board of Medical Examiners issued a statement saying that only doctors can give permission for patients to have flu shots.

“Under both federal and Georgia law, influenza vaccine is considered to be a dangerous drug,” the statement said. “Georgia law requires a valid patient-specific prescription.”

The board is so proud of this order it’s not posted on its Web site. I did manage to find a picture of its chair, Jean Rawlings Sumner (right).

Some Georgia pharmacies, acting under a statement of the Governor, are going ahead anyway. Others, like my pharmacist, are following the law. You need a prescription for the flu shot in Georgia.

“Just go to your doctor and have him fax me some permission,” my pharmacist said helpfully. He then sought to defend the medical board, saying “the law is the law,” implying that this is some sort of technicality, adding he hopes the legislature will change this rule when it returns in January.

My pharmacist is a nice fellow. But this is a serious scandal.

What about people who don’t have a regular doctor they can call to authorize the flu shot? What about the uninsured?

Every national medical authority has been telling us for months that everyone should get the flu shot. Not just the very young and very old, but anyone who comes in contact with them.

When I took a survey on the flu shot, however, only half of you said you would follow the recommendation. There is little pent-up demand for the flu shot.

So here is what will happen. Millions of Georgians will not get the flu shot. Some will get sick. Some will die. And this year’s flu will have a rich vein of victims in which to grow strong.

Last year’s flu started here in December. Time is of the essence. If you are going to be protected you need to call your doctor now.

But you shouldn’t have to.

My pharmacist added that he has heard Georgia pharmacies are being shipped much less flu vaccine than in year past, because of this rule.

The only winner here is the flu itself.

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Dana Blankenhorn

Dana Blankenhorn has been a journalist, writer and part-time futurist for over 30 years. At the present moment I run only a personal blog in addition to my ZDNet open source blog. DanaBlankenhorn.Com has the subtitle The War Against Oil. In the past I have used it to write about political history, e-commerce, personal matters, some ideas related to open source, and The World of Always On, which is the idea of using sensors, motes and RFID to turn WiFi links into platforms for applications which live in the air. My IRA account at Schwab holds a few tech shares, most notably some Intel and Applied Materials, but there are no open source companies in it. I don’t even own any CBS stock.

Biography

Dana Blankenhorn

Dana Blankenhorn has been a business journalist since 1978, and has covered technology since 1982. He launched the Interactive Age Daily, the first daily coverage of the Internet to launch with a magazine, in September 1994.
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Those tough microbes
elderlybloke 7th Nov 2008
Dear Wolfie,
You may be confusing Viruses and Bacteria .
Also the bacteria that live in hot geothermal springs and similar places do not survive at all well away from those locations.

My experience here in New Zealand , is that the Government scheme to provide free annual flu shots for the elderly and those at risk because of occupation or health problems, has been very effective.

I am 77 and my wife is 72 (she has several health problems
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Given that the flu shot is a placebo.
wackoae Updated - 26th Oct 2008
The flu shot is a pharmaceutical scam. It actually has a higher % of making people sick than it does working.

By the time an alleged vaccine is created for a strain of flu, it is over 2 years since that strain past its life. Getting a strain that no longer exists, is just as effective as taking a pill of sugar.

The worst part is that if the person didn't have any contact with the particular strain of flu, the shot will actually make them sick.
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Wrong
dprozzo 26th Oct 2008
Each utterance you made is factually incorrect. Start here:

http://healthvermont.gov/prevent/flu/myths.aspx
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BS not supported by facts
wackoae 26th Oct 2008
Studies made by the big pharma will never convice me to not trust studies made by independent groups.

How effective are flu vaccines?According to the Lancet Medical Journal, has found that the flu vaccine has not prevented flu related deaths in people over the age of 65. This confirms earlier research in 2005, that found that even though rates for immunization in people over 65 had increased 50 per cent, in the last 20 years, there was not a comparative decline in deaths caused by influenza. However, flu shots are recommended for that purpose by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Their data indicates that there are about 36,000 yearly deaths of Americans, and 200,000 annual hospitalizations for flu and related illnesses.

However, research has revealed that flu deaths are only a small percentage of the 36,000 deaths cited, because that is a combined figure for both flu deaths and pneumonia. It is estimated that only 1 to 4 per cent of that total is for the flu alone. (This is backed up by annual reports from the National Center for Health Statistics.)
Silly conclusions... it's not to prevent death... it is to reduce the spreading and the related costs of the disease in both working and not working people. It is not even about preventing all the flu, but about reducing the number of people sick at a given time.

You are right about the vaccine providing little protection to the elderly... but they are not the whole population and younger people get better protection. So, by making the vaccine universal you can help indirectly protect the elderly (by reducing the global chance of being exposed to the wild virus).

Your point about not believing blindly to pharma-sponsored trials is quite valid; those greedy monsters would sell you poison and tell you is a magic panacea just for some dollars. But please note that there are several independent studies, not all sponsored by the pharma corporations.


Regards,

MV
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pneumonia is the killer
eglazier 27th Oct 2008
death directly from the flu is not common it is true. however death from pneumonioa is common and is a result of the flu damaging the immune system so that the suffrer gets pneumonia.
maybe wackoae ought to read a bit further. most of the 1918-20 deaths from flu were really from pneumonia.
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Lots of BS claims, totally untrue
bmerc Updated - 27th Oct 2008
"It actually has a higher % of making people sick than it does working."

This statement is factually incorrect. No, that's too weak a way to describe it. This statement is a steaming pile of bull feces. The effectiveness of flu vaccines varies depending on time, location, and individual recipient. But statistically speaking, even the absolutely LEAST effective flu vaccine is still more likely to help you than make you sick.

"By the time an alleged vaccine is created for a strain of flu, it is over 2 years since that strain past its life."

You seem to know nothing about either flu virus propagation or the vaccine development process. Flu virus strains do not vanish off the face of the earth after two years, that's just ignorant. Nor are vaccines developed two years before they are released. Total BS.

"Getting a strain that no longer exists, is just as effective as taking a pill of sugar."

This is kinda mayby sorta true, sort of, but not really. Nobody gets flu shots that protect against strains that 'no longer exist.' Never have, never will. Flu vaccines are designed to protect against what are PREDICTED to be the most LIKELY strains of flu to spread widely. Sorta like the weatherman PREDICTS what the weather will be. With your reasoning, meteorology is totally useless because it's not 100% accurate. Stupid.



"The worst part is that if the person didn't have any contact with the particular strain of flu, the shot will actually make them sick."

This statement is complete bullS**t.
Absolutely false.
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RE: Georgia flu scandal
kozmcrae 26th Oct 2008
It looks like Georgia will be playing canary in a coal mine for the rest of us. Gee, thanks Ms Sumner! As usual it will be the poor and disenfranchised who will pay the price. I better stop right here because my thoughts aren't getting any nicer.
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???
kitko 26th Oct 2008
Which Georgia??? American or the one next to Russia?

More importantly
A) flu strains differ significantly year over year
B) flu strain in one year differ significantly geographically, and I'm talking city to city, not continent to continent.

As a result, for most people, flu shots are useless.
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Let's see now
frgough 27th Oct 2008
Government involvement in a health care issue results in
shortages, health endangerment, etc.

Blog author's constant agenda? Government run health care.

Look up cognitive dissonance, and see his picture next to the
definition.

as for the uninsured? The children are covered by medicare. The
elderly are covered by medicare. Nobody else needs the flu shot.
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Take off the political agenda distortion field goggles, and look at just how asinine and stupid this statement really is.

ONE: The flu vaccine is not intended to protect old folks and children. It's intended to reduce the size and cost of flu outbreaks. Protecting innocent children and the elderly is only part of the equation.

TWO: How in the F*** do you think children and the elderly get exposed to the flu?
Flying Flu Monkeys?
The Flu Fairy?

The flu spreads. It doesn't just happen. The more people have it, the more people spread it.

It's not bedridden elderly people spreading the infection at the local Wal-Mart, it's the "healthy" people out and about who actually spread the disease.

Those are the people to vaccinate if you want to reduce that spread. It's astonishingly simple and obvious.

THREE: flu shots are MOST effective at preventing flu in young people and adults of good health. They are LEAST effective at preventing flu in elderly and sick people, because those people tend to have weaker immune systems, which get less benefit from the vaccine. Vaccines rely on your own immune system to work. Maybe you didn't know that, if so, consider yourself better informed now.

Since the goal of vaccination is to reduce the spread of the illness among the population, it's blatantly obvious that one needs to vaccinate as many as possible of the people who will benefit most from it.

Please reconsider your woefully misguided and ignorant position on this issue.
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RE: Georgia flu scandal
bsttsch777 27th Oct 2008
I think you better do some research, you will find that at best its a crap shoot every year with the flu shot. With all the strains that can possible affect us, the "geniuses" take a chance on which one they think will attack a create the slu shot for that one. Last year it help absoulty no one.
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follow the...?
ca1ic0cat 27th Oct 2008
I'd love to know what the motivation is behind this rule? Rationing of a limited resource? Fear of side effects? Money?

Being from NY I'd bet on the latter. Does anybody know the truth?
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This is one of those cases where
bmerc 27th Oct 2008
forwarded email chain letters with anecdotal evidence and outright fabrications by a few people with a "protect my rights" agenda are causing lawmakers to react stupidly. It's total BS.
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JUST Go to Your Doctor?
MichP 27th Oct 2008
Do doctors in Georgia have so little to do that they can take the increased phone call and busy work load? Around here, if you need to get a doctor's go-ahead for something non-critical like that, you might as well go home and come back the next day (unless you like spending two or three hours browsing the rest of the store).
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RE: Seems you info isn't correct
techmail@... 27th Oct 2008
Doesn't seem to be a problem at the local Walgreen's (metro Atlanta). My wife and I both got flu shots there yesterday with NO prescription. Maybe having a nurse-practioner on-site is the difference? Maybe the rules have changed and you haven't discovered it?
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Flu shots at lots of places in GA
Pokeyman2 27th Oct 2008
My wife and I had no trouble finding flu shots at Walgreens, plus other venues such as CVS, Kroger, etc., are advertising that they have flu shots.

Tempest in a teakettle, perhaps?
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Conflict of interests
Dr_Zinj 27th Oct 2008
The Georgia board probably ruled the way they did to increase revenues for physicians, and not due to the so-called dangerousness of the flu vaccine.

I suppose that if the pharmacy in question has an actual Doctor of Pharmacology on site, that he or she could give the shot. But a lot of commerical chain pharmacies probably are staffed with technicians and have a doctor on call or servicing several sites. Nothing against the technicians, very little gets done without them.

Odds of an adverse reaction to the shot are pretty slim, especially with the use of screening questions. So why Georgia went nuts this year over it, I can't fathom. However, Doctors, Physician Assistants, and Nurse Practitioners are all qualified to take more advanced measures than ordinary technicians in the case where a patient-customer has a bad reaction.

Flu shots are NOT placebos. A placebo is a substance given to a patient that does not have any direct pharmacological effect. Flu vaccines contain killed flu viruses and the protein coatings are what the body reacts to.

You can't catch the flu from a shot. It's the body's reaction to the shot as it identifies the foreign proteins and makes anti-bodies that make some people feel ill. CDC claims that you can't catch the flu from the weakened virus in the nasal spray, but that it can be transmitted. Sorry, but those are pretty contradictory statements. Let's just say that the nasal spray has a chance of giving you the flu, albeit one of lesser intensity (it IS weakened).

The CDC says that people who should get vaccinated each year are:

1. Children aged 6 months up to their 19th birthday
2. Pregnant women
3. People 50 years of age and older (I'll be in this group next year).
4. People of any age with certain chronic medical conditions
5. People who live in nursing homes and other long-term care facilities
6. People who live with or care for those at high risk for complications from flu, including:
a. Health care workers (This is where I am).
b. Household contacts of persons at high risk for complications from the flu
c. Household contacts and out of home caregivers of children less than 6 months of age (these children are too young to be vaccinated)

Flu is very serious for categories 2-5, and babies. The shot is supposed to prevent it, or mitigate it for categories 2-5. And not just because of the flu itself, but from other respiratory infections caught because the person was weakened by the flu. School-age children and health care workers are targetted to prevent them from being vectors, not to necessarily keep them from getting the flu.

Only 2 to 8 percent of an unvaccinated population are likely to contract a flu that could be vaccinated against each year. Normal healthy adults probably aren't goign to be more than inconvenienced; but if it's a baby or a retired person, it may be a death sentence. And we don't know when then next iteration of a Spanish flu will show up; that one actually killed more healthy people than others.
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RE: Georgia flu scandal
MissGator 27th Oct 2008
I saw a table set up in the Atlanta airport for flu shots in early October. I doubt if they required a prescription since most people would never take a prescription to the airport. It seemed like a strange place to get a flu shot.
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RE: Georgia flu scandal
Daedalu 27th Oct 2008
Has anyone looked to see who lobbied for this ruling?
I myself would like to know. Follow the Money trail and you will have your answer to what is the cause.
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Got the shot twice....got the flu twice
DeepThoughtsShallowMind 27th Oct 2008
I'm not a big believer in those that state 'you cannot get the flu from the flu shot'. I got the flu shot twice, while in the military (they don't give you a choice), and both times I got the flu starting that very night. I know you MD want-a-be's will tell me how naive I am, and how there is no possible way the two are related....yet, I have not gotten a flu shot since getting out of the military, and I have not gotten the flu since......sooo, explain that with your elevated intelligence.

I've read enough to know that the flu shot is a 'best guess' by some physician elite group somewhere and that it may or may not help your immune system prepare itself against the virus.

I let my children get the shot, and they have not gotten the flu.....but I don't think they would have gotten the flu anyways. I like leaving the immune system alone and letting it do it's thing.

Here's a doomsday scenario for you...anyone seen "I Am Legend"....how about the 'bird flu' epidemic. How much longer before the brilliant physicians (that of course in no way profit from the flu..yeah right)..create some mutant flu virus that ends up killing more people than any natural virus has ever done....or for that matter, the flu virus mutates itself one day into a 'super flu virus' that is 100x worse than any flu before......things that make you go mmmmmmm.
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Not so surprising, really...
Wolfie2K3 27th Oct 2008
A vaccine for the flu is built based on dead copies of the virus itself. They grow cultures of the thing in eggs and kill the virus when they harvest them.

The idea here is your body will see the foreign invader (the dead virus) and build antibodies to defend itself against it.

The problem with the flu is there are literally hundreds, if not thousands of strains - or variations - of the bloody things. And the antibodies for one strain won't necessarily work to kill another. There aren't any supervaccines that will kill ALL strains of influenza - that won't kill the host (you) as well. Yet.

Scientists look at what strains are running in the wild at any given time and figure out the best possible vaccine based on statistics. Of course, statistics can be wrong - which is why you likely got infected. They bet on strain A and you got strain B or C.

There's one other possibility why you got the flu after getting the shot. If a virus sample isn't completely killed by whatever process they use to kill it (when making the vaccine), then it's entirely possible you got infected by the vaccine. DOH! Microbes are pretty hearty critters. They've survived fire, flood and famine over the years. I wouldn't be too surprised to find they've become resistant to whatever killed was successful at killing them off in the past. If they can find bacteria that can survive in the ocean depths in plumes of toxic chemicals that are hot enough to burn flesh off the bone, then I can see how a virus can survive whatever techniques they're using to kill them in the lab.
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Those tough microbes
elderlybloke 7th Nov 2008
Dear Wolfie,
You may be confusing Viruses and Bacteria .
Also the bacteria that live in hot geothermal springs and similar places do not survive at all well away from those locations.

My experience here in New Zealand , is that the Government scheme to provide free annual flu shots for the elderly and those at risk because of occupation or health problems, has been very effective.

I am 77 and my wife is 72 (she has several health problems

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