Obstacles to obtaining the seasonal flu, H1N1 vaccines

I can't find flu shots or influenza A (H1N1) shots for my kids anywhere. As much as I want them to be vaccinated, no one within 50 miles of my home appears to have them.

My kids meet criteria on many levels — age, being in day care and having caregivers who are health care providers ... However, I have patients who meet none of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention or Wisconsin Division of Public Health criteria to receive the H1N1 vaccine, but I presume through their persistence, they have convinced their primary care doctors to give it to them.

I have two thoughts on this: (1) I'm frustrated with people who do not meet criteria taking away vaccines from those who do, and no one (physicians, nurses, pharmacists) standing up to them and explaining why we only recommend H1N1 vaccine for those higher-risk people right now, and (2) how this vaccine fiasco has evolved is quite a blemish on our public health system. We have been talking about swine flu for more than a year! We knew this was coming; how can we not have adequate numbers of vaccines for at least the highest-risk patients?

In particular, continuing to manufacture the seasonal flu vaccine before the swine flu vaccine was likely not the right decision (see this summary of the production foibles here).

Now I am fairly sure that by the time my kids get the shot (if ever!) the peak of the infection likely may have passed. And I'm mad about it.

Dr. LoConte is an oncologist and a regular blogger for PediatricSuperSite.com's sister publication, HemOncToday.com.