Bird Flu Vaccine Priority

EPIDEMICS

The threat of bird flu causes society to ask the big questions...

by Staff Writers
Washington (UPI) May 17, 2006
U.S. heath ethicists are considering bird flu pandemic priorities -- specifically, when there isn't enough vaccine for everyone, who gets the first doses?

University of Vermont ethicist Alan Wertheimer, professor emeritus of political science and current visiting scholar at the National Institutes of Health, along with NIH's Bioethics Chief Ezekiel Emanuel, recommend placing healthy people from early adolescence to middle age toward the front of the line for vaccination.

They argue vaccine policy should consider the amount an individual has invested in his or her life. A 20-year-old, they suggest, has developed more unfulfilled interests, plans and hopes than a baby and, therefore, deserves a higher priority for vaccine.

Wertheimer concedes the subject is controversial.

"People don't like to ask the sorts of the questions in this paper," Wertheimer said. "It would be nice if we did not have to confront this issue. And we may not have to. But at some point, it seems likely that we may have to confront a pandemic or something else that poses a similar dilemma."

The study appears in the journal Science.

Source: United Press International

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