Is the Illinois Democratic party playing politics with its distribution of H1N1 vaccine?
Sources in Illinois tell FrumForum that while Chicago and downstate Illinois (the homebase of Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin) are receiving large amounts of vaccine, the pediatricians, schools and hospitals in the city’s northern suburbs are receiving none at all.
These suburbs happen to form the congressional district of Mark Kirk, a leading contender for the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate seat formerly held by President Obama.
Dr. Irwin Benuck, president of the Illinois chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, and a physician practicing in Kirk’s 10th district, confirms to FrumForum that physicians in his area have no supply of H1N1 vaccine. He has published an open letter on the problem here.
Dr Benuck’s key point:
Children six months through 4 years of age need the vaccine before healthy older children and adults, and they are best reached through their doctor’s office. Vaccination programs offered through schools will not reach these children.
Chicago, as it happens, has received a large quota of vaccine for school use.
In an interview, Dr Benuck suggests that allocation decisions are being made at the state level rather than in Washington. If that’s right, then here is another Illinois first: subordinating children’s health to Democratic patronage.
25 responses so far
1 Churl // Nov 13, 2009 at 7:10 pm
Welcome to your medical care of the future.
2 teabag // Nov 13, 2009 at 7:22 pm
Again I call BS.
A political party is not in charge of distributing vaccine. No way no how. This sounds more like a Michelle Bachman/Sarah Palin death squad nonsense.
3 balconesfault // Nov 13, 2009 at 8:11 pm
Reminds me a lot of this, as reported a couple months ago:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32605508/
The national Republican Party has mailed a fundraising appeal suggesting Democrats might use an overhaul of the health care system to deny medical treatment to Republicans.
A questionnaire accompanying the appeal says the government could check voting registration records, “prompting fears that GOP voters might be discriminated against for medical treatment in a Democrat-imposed health care rationing system.”
It asks, “Does this possibility concern you?”
A thousand points of paranoia.
4 sinz54 // Nov 13, 2009 at 8:49 pm
If it is politics, then it’s pretty strange politics.
In Boston Massachusetts, Massachusetts General Hospital had no H1N1 vaccine last week. I know because I was there. And for those who may not know, Mass General is perhaps the best hospital in Massachusetts–and one of the top 10 in the nation. But they ain’t got no vaccine neither.
Massachusetts, the home of the Kennedy family, is one of the most staunchly Democratic states; Boston is staunchly Dem. Why Boston can’t get enough H1N1 vaccine is unlikely to be due to Dem political interference.
Favoring Chicago over its suburbs makes medical sense: Chicago, a densely populated urban area, is likely to be harder hit by any contagious disease spread by droplet infection: Commuters jammed into trains on the “El” will spread more germs than suburbanites driving around in their own cars.
5 rbottoms // Nov 13, 2009 at 9:52 pm
A Republican is complaining about decisions being made by the state of Illinois rather than the Federal Government? There’s a first.
Then there the ominous black helicopter logic that Obama wants the Republicans in Mark Kirk’s district to DIE!!!!, because of course no one would notice the administration’s hand in the genocide, and Obama’s StalinHilterMao in disguise don’t cha’ know.
Old Prayer:
Lord, make my enemies ridiculous.
6 Kevin B // Nov 13, 2009 at 10:09 pm
I’m concerned about the possibility that deeply embedded sleeper cells of Republican operatives have engineered these shortages to lure gullible bloggers into blaming the Democrats.
Watch out for those Republicans. They’re sneaky, they are.
7 txanne // Nov 13, 2009 at 10:46 pm
ACORN!
8 balconesfault // Nov 13, 2009 at 11:20 pm
txanne ACORN
I was thinking the same … but I was trying to figure out if ACORN was shipping the drugs to Democratic districts, or if ACORN was just creating the rumor to circulate around to make some Republicans look even less credible.
Then again, it’s Illinois. So maybe it’s really Bill Ayers behind it. With Reverend Wright helping.
9 Churl // Nov 14, 2009 at 1:16 am
So, where’s all the vaccine that Obama’s administration said they would provide us?
Eh?
10 Kevin B // Nov 14, 2009 at 4:02 am
Probably no party politics in in the distribution. But tea party politics in the analysis? You Betcha!
11 rbottoms // Nov 14, 2009 at 4:02 am
12 rbottoms // Nov 14, 2009 at 4:04 am
You mean the vaccine that we have to depend upon the private sector to provide? I suppose we could have a government agency do it, but then that would mean more bureaucrats. We could shovel more money at the drug companies to pump out more, but that would mean higher taxes. I hear you guys don’t like either.
This is a lot like complaining about slow service at the Post Office, and freaking out if the Postal Service wants to raise the rates for a letter.
You want everything, now and not have your taxes go up. Ever.
13 balconesfault // Nov 14, 2009 at 6:29 am
You want everything, now and not have your taxes go up. Ever.
People should be aware of how the free market would react to something like the swine flu vaccine if the government weren’t placing orders very early in the process. Because the vaccine has essentially no shelf life if you overproduce – since once the swine flu epidemic passes there will be no further need (unlike, say, Tamiflu which can be kept around for the next epidemic) – this discourages more entrants into the marketplace. Losing in a price competition battle could strand virtually your entire investment in the vaccination.
So the production would be limited to a very small number of actors. And those actors would all be aware that they have a vested interest in underproducing the vaccine – without government being the customer and setting the prices to the consumer, shortages of vaccine would actually allow the manufacturers to inflate their price significantly in response to a short-term high demand. On the other hand, overproducing the vaccine, particularly if months later for some reason demand dropped (eg -perception of the seriousness of the swine flu diminished) would leave producers subject to potential losses.
No – these vaccines would end up being a prime example of the breakdown of the free market were we to take government as a customer out of the equation.
On the flip side, were the Obama Administration to have gambled that the vaccine manufacturers were overestimating their capability to produce, and had gone out and doubled their size of contracts last June, at the end of the day it would have been the Republicans screaming loudest about the waste (and I’m sure there would be allegations of fraud as well) had quotas all been met and millions of vaccine units purchased by the government gone to waste.
I know the Repubs would like to find another Katrina, this time one they can blame on Obama. But they’ll have to wait – the swine flu vaccine isn’t it.
14 sinz54 // Nov 14, 2009 at 10:03 am
Let me inject a note of science and sanity into this discussion:
It wouldn’t have mattered how the vaccine got produced–public or private.
Because Mother Nature threw us a curve:
The H1N1 virus is not growing well in the usual growth medium (eggs). Scientists don’t understand exactly why.
Normally, they can expect an average yield of at least 3 doses of vaccine from the flu virus that grows in each egg. But with H1N1, for reasons as yet unclear, they’re getting less than 1 dose. That’s right, they need several eggs just to scrape together enough virus for just one dose of vaccine.
And that’s the main reason why the H1N1 vaccine program is behind schedule.
The Washington Post had an article on this just a few days ago.
15 balconesfault // Nov 14, 2009 at 10:34 am
It wouldn’t have mattered how the vaccine got produced–public or private.
Not completely true … the fact is that there is always the possibility of something going wrong during the process.
The question becomes – should government anticipate that sometimes not everything is going to go according to plan, and dedicate excess resources to addressing problems with the knowledge that in all probability the excess will go to waste? Perhaps I’m wrong, but I would assume that more resources would have produced more vaccine, and a greater supply would have been available on time … or, had things gone per schedule, a greater amount of vaccine would have ended up going to waste.
The main difference here between the government running the program, and the private sector running the program, is that in the absence of regulations the latter case would have likely resulted in the original limited supply of the vaccine being rationed not per bureaucratic dictate – but by the free market.
Suppliers would have charged more – long lines to buy it at $20 a shot? Let’s see how long the lines are at $100 a shot. The whole “Goldman-Sacks” controversy would be irrelevant – Goldman would have been willing to pay $1000 a vaccine for their execs, and gone straight to the head of the line. And there’s nothing wrong with this – in the absence of federal involvement, the private firms would have been taking on substantial risk to be producing the H1N1 vaccine on their own tabs, and free market ideology dictates that people who take substantial risk should be entitled to significant rewards if they’re available.
So if someone is going to attack the Obama Admininstration for the shortfall … I want to hear what they think should have been done differently.
16 sdspringy // Nov 14, 2009 at 11:10 am
Whether the problems associated with the vaccine can be laid at the feet of the current administration I don’t know. I am not willing to do that.
However I know that 4000 Americans have died, from the lack of vaccine, maybe. If Bush had been president during this, the Dems and media would be in hysterics. Fist clenching, full throttel, finger pointing, pants pissing, scream fest.
What do we hear now, quite, patience, no concern, working as hard as we can. Fine.
I don’t plan on getting vaccinated anyway, but really, what an overall joke.
17 teabag // Nov 14, 2009 at 11:39 am
I see that you have revised the headline. Before it was a question, now with the same set of non facts it’s a statement. What change in the meantime as the body of the article is exactly the same? This is more like Pravda than a supposed respected outlet.
18 Kevin B // Nov 14, 2009 at 11:53 am
That depends. If this happened in November 2001, when Bush had been in office 10 months and 9/11 was only two months in the past, then no, I don’t think the Dems or the media would have gone all “tea party” on him. We were all coming together in a crisis.
19 rbottoms // Nov 14, 2009 at 1:05 pm
Republicans have being jerks down to a science, but this headline is beyond despicable.
Go back to just having Chickenhawk blowhards as commentators and leave the disgusting insults to Glenn Beck.
20 Arch // Nov 14, 2009 at 7:40 pm
The headline (as it currently reads) would fit right in on Drudge.
21 jakester // Nov 15, 2009 at 2:09 am
As much as I see some paranoia involved, anyone can see that the more the government gets involved in anything, the more chances that thing will get politicized. Look at the Chrysler GM bailout where they closed all those dealerships, whether they deserved it or not, when the government is involved in unpopular decisions, then they are going to get heat.
22 SFTor1 // Nov 15, 2009 at 4:37 am
Any commentator who wants to be taken seriously has to look at this report and reject it out of hand.
So Democrats think it’s cool to kill Republican kids? Come on folks, this is beyond the pale.
23 sinz54 // Nov 15, 2009 at 9:00 am
balconesfault:
In this case,
that would have required a degree of omniscience that neither the government nor the private sector had.
The CDC was well aware of the methods traditionally used to produce flu vaccine. They had no complaint about applying those methods to produce an H1N1 vaccine. If the CDC had no complaint, then neither the Executive Branch nor the Congress would either.
Remember the ridicule the Government got when they erred in the other direction, with the first swine flu vaccine in 1976. Then, they also feared a swine flu pandemic. So they cranked up the production of swine flu vaccine and got millions vaccinated (including yours truly). But the anticipated pandemic never materialized; nobody got sick from swine flu in 1976. But people did get very sick from the side effects of the vaccine. The ridicule over having hyped a nonexistent pandemic helped cost President Gerald Ford his job.
I guess the bottom line is that when a new pathogen comes along, whether it’s 1976 swine flu, HIV or H1N1, the Government should not act like it’s got the situation well in hand–because that’s a lie. They should prepare the public in advance to expect the unexpected. Mother Nature always gets a vote.
24 MtnDrew // Nov 15, 2009 at 2:01 pm
SFT or 1- what report are you talking about ?
And before I take you seriously you have to prove to me you’re no longer beating your wife.
25 ottovbvs // Nov 15, 2009 at 7:32 pm
………Yes the Democrats are setting up death panels too I believe so that the aged can be bumped off early……..it’s just like that sign at the Bachmann rally said……the democrats are going to commit mass murder and bury the bodies in shallow graves……..very near the homes of Republican congressmen and senators so the resultant odors will reduce the value of their homes…….Shocking…….I put it all down to Acorn and George Soros
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