CDC Panel Calls for Flu Vaccine for All

February 26, 2010

The Washington Post

By Mike Stobbe

A government panel is now recommending that virtually all Americans get a flu shot each year, starting this fall.

The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices had gradually been expanding its recommendation for flu shots – 85 percent of Americans were already included.

On Wednesday, the panel voted to recommend a seasonal flu vaccination for everyone except babies younger than 6 months and those with egg allergies or other unusual conditions.

The panel’s recommendation now goes to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The CDC usually follows the panel’s advice and spreads the message to doctors and hospitals across the country.

“Now no one should say ‘Should I or shouldn’t I?’” said Dr. Anthony Fiore, a CDC flu specialist.
CDC vaccination recommendations tend to be influential with the doctors who give the shots and the health insurers who pay for them.

Flu shots are already recommended for 85 percent of the U.S. public, including pregnant women, children older than 6 months, adults 50 and older, people with certain chronic health conditions, health care workers and those who take care of people in a recommended group. The only people who weren’t specifically included were healthy people ages 19 to 49 who don’t have close contact with anyone at risk of flu and its complications.

But only about 33 percent of Americans actually get a flu shot, and unusually millions and millions of doses get thrown away annually.

The swine flu pandemic that hit last year caused a new momentum for flu vaccinations. Virtually all the 114 million doses of seasonal flu vaccine doses made were distributed, and more young adults and children got the swine flu vaccine than usually come out for seasonal flu.

The panel voted 11 to 0 – with one abstention – for the recommendation, prompting a short round of applause in the CDC auditorium where the meeting was held. Some public health experts and physicians had been pushing for a universal flu vaccination recommendation for more than 10 years.

Also on Wednesday, the panel gave its nod to a proposed formulation of next year’s seasonal flu vaccine. The vaccine will be built to protect against three strains of flu scientists think will be circulating next fall and winter. Swine flu is to be one of the strains incorporated into the vaccine.

At past meetings, the panel stopped short of recommending flu shots for everyone. Panel members were mindful of a history of temporary flu vaccine shortages in the United States. They worried a universal recommendation might cause demand to far surpass supply and endanger those at the highest risk of life-threatening flu complications.

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Majority of Americans Say Government a Threat to Citizens’ Rights

February 26, 2010

CNN

By Paul Steinhauser

A majority of Americans think the federal government poses a threat to rights of Americans, according to a new national poll.

Fifty-six percent of people questioned in a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey released Friday say they think the federal government’s become so large and powerful that it poses an immediate threat to the rights and freedoms of ordinary citizens. Forty-four percent of those polled disagree.

The survey indicates a partisan divide on the question: only 37 percent of Democrats, 63 percent of Independents and nearly 7 in 10 Republicans say the federal government poses a threat to the rights of Americans.

According to CNN poll numbers released Sunday, Americans overwhelmingly think that the U.S. government is broken – though the public overwhelmingly holds out hope that what’s broken can be fixed.

The CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll was conducted February 12-15, with 1,023 adult Americans questioned by telephone. The survey’s sampling error is plus or minus 3 percentage points for the overall survey.

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Desperate LA Going After Unlicensed Dogs

February 26, 2010

Associated Press

Cash-strapped Los Angeles is going to the dogs — literally.

The City Council voted Tuesday to have two departments share information in order to track down people who haven’t licensed their pets.

Council President Eric Garcetti estimates two-thirds of the city’s dogs are unlicensed. Licenses cost $15 for a sterilized dog and $100 for an unaltered pet.

Getting all dogs licensed would mean at least an additional $3.6 million in fees to the city.

The Department of Animal Services has eight full-time people whose job is to find and license dogs. The Department of Water and Power keeps a meter-reader database of homes with dogs. The council ordered the departments to coordinate to find the pooches.

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Dems Retreat on New Privacy Protections

February 26, 2010

My Way

By Larry Margasak

Senate Democrats have retreated from adding new privacy protections to the nation’s primary counterterrorism law, as Republicans refused to lend support and portrayed the majority as willing to harm terror investigations.

Lacking the necessary 60-vote supermajority, Democratic leaders settled on a one-year extension of expiring surveillance and seizure provisions of the USA Patriot Act.

They tossed aside curbs – and greater scrutiny – on government authority agreed to by the Senate Judiciary Committee in October after spirited debate.

The extension passed Wednesday night by voice vote with no debate. The bill goes to the House, but with key sections of the law ready to expire Sunday, there’s little chance that changes will be made. Expiration of key anti-terrorism tools, even for a short time, would seriously hamper law enforcement.

The Democratic retreat is an important political victory for Republicans, who gained new ammunition for their election theme that the GOP can better protect America. The outcome is a major disappointment for Democrats and their liberal allies, like the American Civil Liberties Union and supporters who believe the Patriot Act fails to protect Americans’ privacy and gives the government too much authority to spy on Americans and seize their property.

Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., noted that the bill had been approved in committee by a bipartisan majority. He said the measure “should be an example of what Democrats and Republicans can accomplish when we work together, but I understand some Republican senators objected to passing the carefully crafted national security, oversight and judicial review provisions in this legislation.”

Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama, the ranking Republican on Leahy’s committee, set the GOP tone in December when the same provisions faced an earlier expiration date and received a short extension.

“The bill that eventually emerged from the Judiciary Committee does not meet the key test for any national security legislation: First, do no harm,” Sessions said. “The bill reported by the committee would make the jobs of our national security officials more difficult.”

The Obama administration supported the revisions to the law as approved by the committee.

The three sections of the Patriot act that would stay in force:

_Authorize court-approved roving wiretaps that permit surveillance on multiple phones.

_Allow court-approved seizure of records and property in anti-terrorism operations.

_Permit surveillance against a so-called lone wolf, a non-U.S. citizen engaged in terrorism who may not be part of a recognized terrorist group.

The Judiciary Committee bill would have restricted FBI information demands known as national security letters, and made it easier to challenge gag orders imposed on Americans whose records are seized with these letters.

Library records would have received extra protections. Congress would have closely scrutinized FBI use of the Patriot Act to prevent abuses. Dissemination of surveillance results would have been restricted, and after a time, unneeded records would have been destroyed.

Republicans have been steadily pounding the Obama administration over the closing of the detainee prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, as well as the possibly of holding civilian trials for detainees in the United States. They have also criticized federal agents for informing a Nigerian, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, of his right to remain silent after 50 minutes of questioning for allegedly trying to ignite explosives on a Detroit-bound airliner on Christmas.

If Democrats had allowed the Senate to have a full debate on the Judiciary Committee restrictions, they would have exposed themselves to Republican arguments that Democrats were hurting law enforcement.

With their health care overhaul bill on the ropes and joblessness still high, Democratic lawmakers need a victory.

Not surprisingly, the Democratic retreat didn’t please the party’s liberal allies, but they recognized the political realities.

“The American Library Association understands why the Democratic leadership has to go with a clean reauthorization, but that doesn’t take away the disappointment we have,” said Lynne Bradley, the group’s chief lobbyist. “It is more than unfortunate that Republicans think they own the ground when it comes to surveillance and national security.”

Michelle Richardson, legislative counsel for the ACLU, said, “Events of the last few months changed the tone in Washington when it comes to national security issues.”

“Were it not for the Christmas Day attack, you might have seen a bill with even modest reform go through,” she said. “The numbers weren’t there.”

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McCain Wants Feds to Regulate Vitamins and Supplements

February 26, 2010

JBS.org

By Ann Shibler

Most are familiar with those commercials on television promoting prescription drugs that supposedly offer relief from a variety of ailments, if one would only pressure one’s doctor to obtain them. They have become a source of great entertainment and amusement to some, the kicker coming at the end of each commercial when the FDA-approved medication’s obligatory litany of warnings and dangerous side effects is recited: “Tell your doctor if….” and “Side effects may include…..” Some of the warnings are mild like diarrhea and constipation, some list serious effects like cancer or tuberculosis, and others admit that sometimes even death can result.

The point here is that these are all FDA-approved drugs being advertised and used extensively. Drugs that can cause serious diseases like lymphoma. Drugs that can kill. The FDA’s dismal safety record is well documented; even PBS ran a Frontline special that investigated and exposed the FDA’s unsafe drug record, the influence of Big Pharma inside the FDA, and lack of long-term testing and medical review of many, many dangerous drugs. The FDA seldom removes a drug from the market even after it proves to be harmful or deadly, however they do post quarterly reports with details of the latest potentially dangerous side effects of drugs currently under investigation.

Nonetheless, Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.) wants this same FDA, with its dismal safety record, to regulate dietary supplements. The Dietary Supplement Safety Act (DSSA), S. 3002 (text of this bill posted on Senator McCain’s website), that McCain has introduced with one cosponsor, would repeal key provisions of the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act (DSHEA) to “more effectively regulate dietary supplements that may pose safety risks unknown to consumers.”

Under attack by the DSSA is the once-protected field of supplements, as they have always been considered food. Potencies would have to be reduced to comply with what appears to be a plan modeled after the European Food Safety Authority. A new list of “Accepted Dietary Ingredients” would be “prepared, published, and maintained by the Secretary,” in the future. That’s a bit like being handed a blank check and told to fill it out later as one wishes. It could certainly be used to severely limit access to, and even production of, hundreds of life-sustaining and essential mineral, herb, and vitamin products.

All ingredients contained in each supplement would have to be disclosed at the time the company registers all of its “manufactured, packaged, held, distributed, labeled or licensed,” products with the FDA. An onerous burden would be placed on the shoulders of suppliers and retailers of dietary supplements, as they would have to “obtain written evidence” from the seller that the product is registered as required by law, and keep that documentation on file. Monetary penalties for non-compliance “may, in addition to other penalties imposed in this section, be fined not more than twice the gross profits or other proceeds derived from the manufacture, packaging, holding, distribution, labeling, or license of such dietary supplement.” Those are very broad dictates and most likely subject to even broader interpretation.

The McCain bill would change existing mandatory serious adverse reporting regulations, requiring minor adverse effects to be reported as well so that the FDA could arbitrarily pull supplements off the shelves or reclassify them as drugs. This immediate recall authority would be granted to the “Secretary upon determination,” that there is a “reasonable probability” that the product is “adulterated” or “misbranded.” Adulterated in this bill takes on a whole new expanded definition: “A dietary supplement which contains a new dietary ingredient shall be deemed adulterated under section 402(f) unless there is a history of use or other evidence of safety.” The development of new products that contain newly discovered nutritional components may be entirely quashed.

The hypocritical contrast between the regulation of drugs that can kill and the proposed hyper-regulation for food products — vitamins, minerals, herbs — is as plain as the nose on everyone’s face.

A Pandora’s box of intended and unintended legal complications and government harassment of nutritional supplement manufacturers and sellers could very well be unleashed if this bill is passed. There are already existing laws on the books that protect consumers from misbranded, fraudulent, or contaminated products. Granting the FDA additional regulatory authority over nutritional supplements seems a bit suspicious, especially considering the influence the enormous pharmaceutical industry has wielded over the research, development, and approval process inside the FDA. Let’s face it, the FDA has been no friend and often has been positively antagonistic toward the nutritional supplement industry. Therefore one wouldn’t set the wolf to guarding the sheep without dire consequences.

In this perverted overly-regulated country, food is now toxic, and drugs and chemicals are safe for ingestion, no matter the harm that results. This inversion should remind us that those who best have the consumers health and safety interests at heart are the consumers themselves. It is big government that has a proven track record of not protecting the public. And it is big government that is seeking to take away yet another individual freedom, the right to choose one’s own treatment. (Where is the pro-choice crowd on this one; the ones that claim, “my body, my choice?”)

Contact your federal legislators and urge them not to cosponsor, support, or vote for such a power-grabbing, bill. Let them know Americans want unrestricted access to nutritional supplements, and the government out of their health choices.

Sen. McCain described his bill as a “no brainer.” For constitutionalists it’s a “no brainer” that it should be rejected for the dictatorial, power-grabbing, choice-limiting attack on the nutritional marketplace and individual freedoms that it is.

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Obama Attempts To Save His Health Bill

February 26, 2010

Yahoo News

By Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar

Cue the cameras. President Barack Obama and his Republican arch foes will argue their case on health care overhaul at a bipartisan summit expected to stretch out for a solid six hours on live, daytime television Thursday for millions of Americans.

Expect them to collide, not come together. Without a no-nonsense referee to slam the gavel on mind-fogging jargon, not to mention apocalyptic rhetoric, some viewers might wish Judge Judy was presiding.

Obama is hoping to resurrect his signature issue and restore his reputation as a different kind of politician who can deliver real results. Congressional leaders of both parties are worried about self-preservation and political control in the November elections.

The goal for Obama is to draw a glaring contrast between the big bill he’s backing and the limited steps Republicans are willing to take, hoping he can fire up anxious Democrats for what may be their last chance in a generation to provide health insurance coverage to nearly all Americans. They have the votes, but do they have the will?

Sen. Chris Dodd, D.-Conn., who will be among the lawmakers participating, worked a rally of supporters on the eve of Thursday’s meeting, scheduled to start at 10 a.m. EST.

“After that meeting, you can either join us or get out of the way,” Dodd said.

Not if Republicans have anything to do with it. Riding a populist backlash against the widening reach of government, they insist that Obama start from scratch, a notion the White House rejects. They’re unified in opposing the Democratic bills passed last year and have pulled back from more ambitious GOP-backed plans that might have provided a foundation for compromise.

With premiums going up by double digits for some consumers, polls show the public wants Congress and the president to deal with spiraling medical costs, shrinking coverage and questionable quality. But Americans are split over the Democratic bills. If Obama and the Democrats can’t get their legislation passed, there may still be a chance for a modest measure this year that smooths the rough edges of the current system but stops well short of coverage for all.

Obama will be the moderator in chief for talks on four topics: revamping insurance, cost containment, expanding coverage and the impact of health care legislation on deficit reduction. The summit will take place at Blair House, the presidential guest quarters across the street from the White House. Here’s a viewer’s guide for consumers on issues critical to working families, seniors and businesses:

• WORKING FAMILIES

While the cost of health insurance is a worry for most Americans, it’s a crisis for the nearly 50 million uninsured and about 27 million who buy their own coverage directly from an insurer. The $1-trillion, 10-year plan Obama and the Democrats have drafted focuses mainly on these two groups.

People with coverage from large employers would get some benefits, like being able to keep children in their late 20s on the company plan — but wouldn’t face major changes unless they lose their jobs or strike out on their own.

People who buy insurance directly, as well as small employers, would be able pick a plan in a new kind of competitive marketplace offering choices similar to what federal employees and Congress members get. But it wouldn’t be a free ride.

Most Americans would be required to carry health insurance and prove it to the IRS.

Obama and the Democrats say their plan would make coverage affordable by providing federal subsidies to help more than 30 million now uninsured. But solid middle-class families may still have to stretch to pay premiums. The help is a lot better for people on the lower income rungs.

Under the plan Obama released Monday — his opening bid at the summit — a family of four making $66,000 would have to pay $6,257 in premiums, close to 10 percent of its income. That’s even after receiving $3,000 in federal tax credits.

By comparison, a similar family making only $44,000 would pay $2,763 — about 6 percent of its income. The estimates come from the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation.

“There’s no question that it’s better than the status quo,” said Larry Levitt, an analyst with Kaiser.

Most Republicans are opposed to an insurance mandate, although they generally like the idea of allowing 20-year-olds to remain on parental coverage. They want to concentrate on stimulating the private market to provide affordable alternatives. One idea: allowing consumers in high-cost states to buy coverage from insurers in low-cost areas.

Republicans also want to help people denied coverage because of medical problems by pumping federal money to high-risk insurance pools run by the states. Obama sees that only as a temporary measure; his plan would ban pre-existing condition denials starting in 2014.

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Scandal Over Death at Hospital – None Blamed

February 26, 2010

Mail Online

By Fay Schlesinger, Andy Dolan, and Tim Shipman

Not a single official has been disciplined over the worst-ever NHS hospital scandal, it emerged last night.
Up to 1,200 people lost their lives needlessly because Mid-Staffordshire NHS Trust put government targets and cost-cutting ahead of patient care.
But none of the doctors, nurses and managers who failed them has suffered any formal sanction.

Indeed, some have either retired on lucrative pensions or have swiftly found new jobs.
Former chief executive Martin Yeates, who has since left with a £1million pension pot, six months’ salary and a reported £400,000 payoff, did not even give evidence to the inquiry which detailed the scale of the scandal yesterday.
He was said to be medically unfit to do so, though he sent some information to chairman Robert Francis through his solicitor.

The devastating-report into the Stafford Hospital-shambles’ laid waste to Labour’s decade-long obsession with box-ticking and league tables.
The independent inquiry headed by Robert Francis QC found the safety of sick and dying patients was ‘routinely neglected’. Others were subjected to ‘ inhumane treatment’, ‘bullying’, ‘abuse’ and ‘rudeness’.

The shocking estimated death toll, three times the previous figure of 400, has prompted calls for a full public inquiry.
Bosses at the Trust – officially an ‘elite’ NHS institution – were condemned for their fixation with cutting waiting times to hit Labour targets and leaving neglected patients to die.
But after a probe that was controversially held in secret, not a single individual has been publicly blamed.
The inquiry found that:

• Patients were left unwashed in their own filth for up to a month as nurses ignored their requests to use the toilet or change their sheets;
• Four members of one family. including a new-born baby girl. died within 18 months after of blunders at the hospital;

• Medics discharged patients hastily out of fear they risked being sacked for delaying;
• Wards were left filthy with blood, discarded needles and used dressings while bullying managers made whistleblowers too frightened to come forward.
Last night the General Medical Council announced it was investigating several doctors. The Nursing and Midwifery Council is investigating at least one nurse and is considering other cases.

Ministers suggested the report highlighted a dreadful ‘local’ scandal, but its overall conclusions are a blistering condemnation of Labour’s approach to the NHS.

It found that hospital were so preoccupied with saving money and pursuit of elite foundation trust status that they ‘lost sight of its fundamental responsibility to provide safe care’.
Health Secretary Andy Burnham accepted 18 recommendations from Mr Francis and immediately announced plans for a new inquiry, to be held in public, into how Department of Health and NHS regulators failed to spot the disaster.
But Julie Bailey, head of the campaign group Cure the NHS, condemned his response as ‘outrageous’ and backed Tory and Liberal Democrat demands for a full public inquiry into what went wrong.
Tory leader David Cameron said: ‘We need openness, clarity and transparency to stop this happening again.’ Gordon Brown described the scandal as a ‘completely unacceptable management failure’ and revealed that the cases of 300 patients are now under investigation.
He told MPs the Government was belatedly working on plans to ‘strike off’ hospital managers responsible for failures. The hospital could also lose its cherished foundation status.
Shadow Health Secretary Andrew Lansley said ‘These awful events show how badly Labour has let down NHS patients. It should never again be possible for managers to put a tick in a box marked “target met” while patients are pushed off to a ward and left to die.’
The Francis probe was launched following a Healthcare Commission report on Stafford Hospital in March last year. It found that deaths at the hospital were 27 to 45 per cent higher than normal, meaning some 400 to 1,200 people died unnecessarily between 2005 and 2008.

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More Over-Radiated Cancer Patients

February 26, 2010

The New York Times

By Walt Bogdanich and Rebecca R. Ruiz

A hospital in Missouri said Wednesday that it had overradiated 76 patients, the vast majority with brain cancer, during a five-year period because powerful new radiation equipment had been set up incorrectly even with a representative of the manufacturer watching as it was done.

The hospital, CoxHealth in Springfield, said half of all patients undergoing a particular type of treatment — stereotactic radiation therapy — were overdosed by about 50 percent after an unidentified medical physicist at the hospital miscalibrated the new equipment and routine checks over the next five years failed to catch the error.

The revelation comes at a time of growing concern about safety procedures for a new generation of powerful, computer-controlled medical radiation equipment.

Stereotactic therapy delivers radiation in such high doses that usually only one treatment is required. It is commonly used to treat small tumors in the head, which must be firmly stabilized, allowing radiation to be delivered to a precise location.

The error was discovered in September 2009 only after a second physicist received training on the equipment, made by BrainLAB, and the hospital began questioning whether the machine had been installed correctly in 2004, in a process called commissioning.

The overdoses at CoxHealth occurred in a state where there is little or no government oversight of radiation therapy, a fact that Robert H. Bezanson, the hospital’s president and chief executive, chose to emphasize.

On Wednesday, he released a letter that he wrote to the Food and Drug Administration, saying that its recent decision to toughen oversight of diagnostic radiation did not go far enough.

“The initiative should be broadened to include regulation of medical radiation therapy as well,” he wrote. “We have also learned that the incident here at CoxHealth is, unfortunately, not an isolated occurrence. Rather, similar instances of medical overradiation have occurred at other hospitals throughout the country. Without increased regulation and oversight, these instances of medical overradiation will likely continue.”

The hospital promised to work with state legislators on ways to better regulate radiation therapy.

Last month, The New York Times documented the harm that can result from radiation errors when basic safety rules are not followed. It also found that in a variety of ways, the pace of technology had outpaced the ability of the medical profession and regulators to keep up.

The overdoses in Springfield echoed what occurred at the Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa, Fla., where a similar commissioning error resulted in 77 brain cancer patients’ receiving 50 percent more radiation than prescribed in 2004 and 2005. The failure of medical facilities to properly commission new radiological equipment was cited as a concern last November by the American Association of Physicists in Medicine.

A testing service for institutions participating in National Cancer Institute trials recommends that certain newly installed radiotherapy equipment undergo an external, independent review before patients are treated. That did not occur at either Moffitt or CoxHealth.

CoxHealth said that so far it had not found any patients who had been harmed beyond the complications of routine radiation therapy. But patients are still being contacted. Some patients, who were seriously ill, have died, and the hospital is looking into those cases.

“The review of their charts and situation is still ongoing,” said Dr. John Duff, senior vice president for hospital operations. “It would be premature to speculate whether the overexposure was a contributing factor to their death.”

Dr. Duff said he did not know why the BrainLAB employee who was present while the new equipment was being installed had not caught the mistake. He said that the hospital did not have any reports from BrainLAB indicating a problem.

The physicist who incorrectly installed the equipment no longer works at the hospital. Officials there declined to explain the circumstances of his departure.

“It’s unacceptable to us that an error like this occurred, and we are taking steps to make sure that an error like this doesn’t happen again,” Mr. Bezanson said.

The hospital said its stereotactic system “remains suspended indefinitely while we are auditing the entire program.”

Kate Franco, a spokeswoman for BrainLAB, issued a statement Wednesday that said the company had assisted CoxHealth in figuring out what went wrong. “Reviews determined that BrainLAB equipment performed as designed and did not malfunction,” the statement said.

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Antics of Drug Companies Disenchanting Population

February 26, 2010

Forbes

By Harlan Krumholz

I want to believe in America’s pharmaceutical companies. I want to believe that people in these companies believe that the best strategy for success is to do what is best for patients. I want to believe that they are interested in scientific truth and eager to know of any safety issues and ready to share that information with the public.

This week I was disappointed again.
Over the years GlaxoSmithKline ( GSK – news – people ) has repeatedly reassured the public about the safety of its blockbuster diabetes drug Avandia. But this weekend the Senate Finance Committee released a report revealing that inside the company Glaxo’s own experts and advisors were raising concerns about whether the drug could cause heart problems all along.

The report, based on more than 250,000 internal documents, provides a rare and unsettling glimpse into the decision by company executives to deflect safety issues–even as their own experts agreed with conclusions of outside researchers who were warning the public about possible harms.

The documents reveal that company researchers were deeply concerned about the cardiovascular safety of the drug as far back as 2003. The pages of the Senate report read like a spy novel: Glaxo receiving confidential documents leaked by a sympathetic academic who consulted for the company; the company embarking on a campaign to intimidate critics who warned about potential safety issues with the drug; and executives pulling strings to release data early from a scientific study that was supposedly controlled by an “independent” committee of researchers.

While Glaxo was publicly downplaying safety worries, a company statistician indicated that concerns raised by critics, including Cleveland Clinic cardiologist Steven Nissen, were legitimate. In one internal document the head of research states that analyses from the FDA, Nissen and GSK all suggested that Avandia could be causing heart attacks. Meanwhile, Glaxo’s media relations department was telling the public that there was no link between the drug and heart disease.

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The Pushing of Annual Flu Vaccinations

February 26, 2010

The Washington Post

By Mike Stobbe

A government panel is now recommending that virtually all Americans get a flu shot each year, starting this fall.

The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices had gradually been expanding its recommendation for flu shots – 85 percent of Americans were already included.

On Wednesday, the panel voted to recommend a seasonal flu vaccination for everyone except babies younger than 6 months and those with egg allergies or other unusual conditions.

The panel’s recommendation now goes to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The CDC usually follows the panel’s advice and spreads the message to doctors and hospitals across the country.

“Now no one should say ‘Should I or shouldn’t I?’” said Dr. Anthony Fiore, a CDC flu specialist.

CDC vaccination recommendations tend to be influential with the doctors who give the shots and the health insurers who pay for them.

Flu shots are already recommended for 85 percent of the U.S. public, including pregnant women, children older than 6 months, adults 50 and older, people with certain chronic health conditions, health care workers and those who take care of people in a recommended group. The only people who weren’t specifically included were healthy people ages 19 to 49 who don’t have close contact with anyone at risk of flu and its complications.

But only about 33 percent of Americans actually get a flu shot, and unusually millions and millions of doses get thrown away annually.

The swine flu pandemic that hit last year caused a new momentum for flu vaccinations. Virtually all the 114 million doses of seasonal flu vaccine doses made were distributed, and more young adults and children got the swine flu vaccine than usually come out for seasonal flu.

The panel voted 11 to 0 – with one abstention – for the recommendation, prompting a short round of applause in the CDC auditorium where the meeting was held. Some public health experts and physicians had been pushing for a universal flu vaccination recommendation for more than 10 years.

Also on Wednesday, the panel gave its nod to a proposed formulation of next year’s seasonal flu vaccine. The vaccine will be built to protect against three strains of flu scientists think will be circulating next fall and winter. Swine flu is to be one of the strains incorporated into the vaccine.

At past meetings, the panel stopped short of recommending flu shots for everyone. Panel members were mindful of a history of temporary flu vaccine shortages in the United States. They worried a universal recommendation might cause demand to far surpass supply and endanger those at the highest risk of life-threatening flu complications.

Click here for the full report

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