Many Michigan kids get 1st dose of H1N1 vaccine, but thousands still need 2nd dose
While supply for the swine flu vaccine has largely caught up to demand within Michigan, thousands of kids who received the first dosage of the vaccine still need a second dose.
So the state health department is planning to mail out more than 175,000 letters to parents reminding them it's not too late to get the second H1N1 flu vaccine shot, the Detroit News reported.
Children younger than 10 needed to return for a later booster shot at least a month after the first shot for the vaccine to work effectively. Late last year, many providers were refusing to offer the second booster shot until more children had the chance to get their first dose of vaccine.
Flu activity both statewide and within Washtenaw County has declined from peak levels last fall. But the Washtenaw County health department says reported cases continue to trickle in, including a few hospitalization caused by the illness.
Tina Reed covers health and the environment for AnnArbor.com. You can reach her at tinareed@annarbor.com, call her at 734-623-2535 or find her on Twitter @TreedinAA.
Comments
tom
Fri, Feb 5, 2010 : 4:47 p.m.
Amazing that the swine flu is under investigation yet no one seems to report it in the U.S.
Rork Kuick
Fri, Feb 5, 2010 : 3:41 p.m.
Sounds like a tough job Edward. Thanks for coverage Tina Reed. We all usually hate censorship even where there is no free speech protections (like here), but perhaps it is needed sometimes, and I do think pointing people to other places that have both biases is not the worst strategy, since readers here can argue with much more expert folks in much more exciting venues if that's what they want to do, or just go read more. Most any specific and incendiary thing we could say here has been said elsewhere. I of course like the scienceblogs site you give, but we must admit that those are pretty dedicated anti-anti-vaxers (as am I), though the comments sometimes are not. Mercola is a fairly extreme anti-vaxer if you want that point of view. Wodarg really does appear to have been a doctor, though maybe not much of a scientist (Wodarg W gives just 1 PubMed hit, to an article in German). I wonder if he is mortified to find Mercola backing him. If you really want to see sparks fly you could try the Daily Mail (British), with an article with nearly 600 comments: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1242147/The-false-pandemic-Drug-firms-cashed-scare-swine-flu-claims-Euro-health-chief.html DailyMail is not famous for fair reporting I think. I don't even want to point to the inflammatory stuff from Germany I've seen, where the Wodarg story is old, and "schweinegrippe" debates abound. Web-searching Wodarg works fairly well.