November 7, 2001
Other Medications
Question from Raleigh, North Carolina, USA:
My three year old granddaughter has diabetes, and her pediatrician won’t even accept a phone call to make an appointment for her flu shot until November, saying they don’t expect to get a shipment until late November. The CDC says healthy people should wait until November or December to ask for shots so high risk people can get access to the earlier supply. How can we request access to flu vaccine for our granddaughter? Is the delivery system set up to allow us to identify her as someone with priority?
In our area, all the early supply seems to have gone to the drug-store sponsored “clinics”, but when we took her to these, we were told they weren’t permitted to give the shots to children under age nine. The age varied upwards at other stores. Who is responsible for delivering the vaccine to high risk children in our area?
Answer:
Your granddaughter’s pediatrician can’t give what he doesn’t have! That said, I consider children with diabetes at high enough risk to warrant vaccine. Have you tried a local health department? They do (at least here in Florida) consider diabetes a high risk condition. Many of the usual places where you can buy a shot (away from the doctor’s office) won’t serve children. That’s true here too. Some family doctors do have vaccine. You might try your doctor or the child’s parents’ doctors.
LD
