Hannity uses CDC announcement of H1N1 vaccine priorities to fearmonger about rationing
On September 21, Sean Hannity again fearmongered about health care rationing, claiming that the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) "literally [has] a list of priorities" regarding which populations receive the H1N1 flu vaccine, and that people age 65 and older are "last on the list," which amounts to "a form of government deciding rationing." In fact, CDC's advisory board explained that it does not anticipate a shortage of H1N1 vaccine but issued the priorities list because "availability and demand can be unpredictable" and said that the "risk for infection among persons age 65 or older is less than the risk for younger age groups."
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Hannity: CDC vaccine list amounts to "government deciding rationing"
From the September 21 edition of Fox News' Hannity:
HANNITY: Did you see the -- the AP story? There's an AP story, ladies and gentlemen, out there about -- everyone's a little bit worried in the back of your mind about swine flu. OK? A lot of people have been talking about it -- they're concerned.
They literally have a list of priorities. When this vaccine finally comes out --
DICK MORRIS (Fox News contributor): Yeah -- right.
HANNITY: -- in October sometime, you know who's last on the list? People 65 and older.
MORRIS: Right.
HANNITY: And I read that, and I'm thinking, all right, isn't that a form of --
MORRIS: Yeah.
HANNITY -- government deciding rationing, if you will --
MORRIS: Exactly.
HANNITY -- the limited number of vaccines they'll ultimately come up with?
MORRIS: Yeah, and more importantly these decisions are being made by a policy board, not by your doctor.
HANNITY: Exactly.
MORRIS: If your doctor knows that you're weak and susceptible and all of that, and one shot -- one attack of the flu is going to kill you, then you should be able to get the shot.
CDC: No vaccine shortage expected, people age 65 and older less at risk
CDC advisory board: "The committee does not expect that there will be a shortage of novel H1N1 vaccine." In a press release titled, "CDC Advisors Make Recommendations for Use of Vaccine Against Novel H1N1," CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices created a list of "groups of the population [that] should be prioritized if the vaccine is initially available in extremely limited quantities" but stated, "The committee does not expect that there will be a shortage of novel H1N1 vaccine." The committee added: "[B]ut availability and demand can be unpredictable. There is some possibility that initially the vaccine will be available in limited quantities." [CDC press release, 7/29/09]
CDC advisory board: People age 65 or older are less at risk than younger age groups. The press release also stated, "Current studies indicate the risk for infection among persons age 65 or older is less than the risk for younger age groups." From the CDC press release:
There is some possibility that initially the vaccine will be available in limited quantities. In this setting, the committee recommended that the following groups receive the vaccine before others:
- pregnant women,
- people who live with or care for children younger than 6 months of age,
- health care and emergency medical services personnel with direct patient contact,
- children 6 months through 4 years of age, and
- children 5 through 18 years of age who have chronic medical conditions.
The committee recognized the need to assess supply and demand issues at the local level. The committee further recommended that once the demand for vaccine for these prioritized groups has been met at the local level, programs and providers should begin vaccinating everyone from ages 25 through 64 years. Current studies indicate the risk for infection among persons age 65 or older is less than the risk for younger age groups. Therefore, as vaccine supply and demand for vaccine among younger age groups is being met, programs and providers should offer vaccination to people over the age of 65.
The committee also stressed that people over the age of 65 receive the seasonal vaccine as soon as it is available. [CDC press release, 7/29/09]
During Bush administration, CDC released flu shot priority list
In 2004, CDC "announced priority groups" for seasonal flu shot due to shortage. In October 2004, CDC announced that the United Kingdom had suspended the license of a company that was making that year's seasonal flu shot for use in the United States and stated that "[t]his will reduce by approximately one half the expected supply of trivalent inactivated vaccine (flu shot) available in the United States for the 2004-05 influenza season." As a result, CDC issued a list of "[p]riority groups for vaccination with inactivated influenza vaccine this season":
Priority Groups for Influenza Vaccination
Priority groups for vaccination with inactivated influenza vaccine this season are:
- all children aged 6-23 months,
- adults aged 65 years and older,
- persons aged 2-64 years with underlying chronic medical conditions,
- all women who will be pregnant during influenza season,
- residents of nursing homes and long-term care facilities,
- children 6 months-18 years of age on chronic aspirin therapy,
- health-care workers with direct patient care, and out-of-home caregivers and household contacts of children aged <6 months. [CDC press release, 10/5/04]
CDC in 2004: People not in priority group should be "asked to forego or defer vaccination." In the October 2004 press release, CDC also stated, "Persons who are not included in one of the priority groups above should be informed about the urgent vaccine supply situation and asked to forego or defer vaccination."
At the time, Hannity defended Bush administration and declared that certain people "don't need a flu shot." On the October 21, 2004, edition of Fox News' Hannity & Colmes, Hannity stated, "The Kerry campaign has slammed Vice President Cheney for getting a flu shot while many Americans cannot" (Nexis transcript). Hannity later asserted to Democratic strategist Bob Beckel: "You and I have been friends a number of years and I've had other friends that had this. You need a flu shot. I'm pretty healthy. I don't need a flu shot. Dick Cheney needs one. Bill Clinton needs one. I understand Hillary got her flu shot." Hannity also said: "I thought this was a cheap shot. The president's not going to get one. I'm healthy. [Co-host] Alan [Colmes], you're healthy. And [guest] Michael [Reagan] you are, too."
Hannity has repeatedly fearmongered about rationing
Hannity: Government rationing body will "tell women with breast cancer, 'you're dead.' " Discussing health care reform, Hannity said, "We're going to have a government rationing body that tells women with breast cancer, 'you're dead.' It's a death sentence." [Hannity, 6/19/09]
Hannity: "[W]elcome to the brave new world of Obamacare. We're going to encourage, you know, inconvenient people to consider 'alternatives to living.' " Referring to a July 17 New York Post op-ed written by former New York Lt. Gov. Betsy McCaughey, Hannity stated on his radio show: "[I]t sounds to me like they're actually encouraging seniors in the end, 'Well, you may just want to consider packing it all in here, this is -- ' what other way is there to describe this?" He continued: "So that they don't become a financial burden on the Obamacare system? I mean, that's how they intend to cut cost, by cutting down on the health care we can give and get at the end of our lives and dramatically cutting it down for senior citizens? You know, welcome to the brave new world of Obamacare. We're going to encourage, you know, inconvenient people to consider 'alternatives to living.' " [ABC Radio Networks' The Sean Hannity Show, 7/17/09]
Hannity strings together "death book," OR assisted suicide, British rationing, asks if Palin "pretty much got this right." Hannity said: "Everyone denied the death panels, Governor Palin is wrong. But then all of a sudden, the Senate says, oh, we'll drop the death panel provision or the end-of-life counseling sessions from the original House version." Hannity also misrepresented the Veterans Health Administration booklet "Your Life, Your Choices" to call it a "death book" and asked, "Can we just say Governor Palin pretty much got this right?" [Hannity, 8/25/09]
Hannity: "Your Life, Your Choices" is like a "death panel." Hannity said to Sen. John McCain: "Senator, your running mate, Governor Sarah Palin, came out with a very hard-hitting posting on Facebook, which I agreed with." He later added: "The Obama administration brought back this book that the Bush administration had gotten rid of -- 'Your Life, Your Choices.' They go through a series of scenarios with veterans at VA hospitals and nursing homes, which basically says, well, you know, you don't want to be a burden to society, to your family. Is that the kind of death panel that maybe people were afraid of when they read pages 425 to 430 of the House bill?" [Hannity, 8/26/09]
I'm pretty sure, every single year, we hear, "So and so should get shots first, and everyone else is secondary."
Or something to that effect.
What does it take to get these idiots to examine in the slightest the logic (or illogic) inherent in their statements?!
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What a phallacy!
Definition per wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn:
•restrict the consumption of a relatively scarce commodity, as during war; "Bread was rationed during the siege of the city"
And it isn't sone because the commodity is actually scarce, it's done so that their profits don't become scarce. Insurance company denies, Grandma dies. And that's a "death panel" that already exists today, run by Insurance Company bureaucrats, unlike the one you see in your fevered hallucinations.
Black and white, yes or no, were in danger of a mushroom cloud from Saddam Hussein?
There's rationing in health care now, and there still would be under reform bill.
...And so it's understandable that Dean would want to knock down these wild claims. But we think Dean goes too far when he says the bills have "no rationing," because it ignores a hard reality of health care — there is rationing now and there would be rationing in the Democrats' plan too.
"This whole notion of rationing as it applies to a public option, I think, is really ridiculous," Stein said. "It is what insurance is. Right now, Congress and any health care plan 'rations.' No health insurance I know pays for 'whatever it costs.'"
"Everyone hates the word rationing," said Katherine Baicker, a health economics professor at Harvard University. "From an economics perspective, there's no way around rationing. Some care is being rationed now. Everyone isn't getting everything."
"Now, in fairness, we probably could not construct a system in which you could see any doctor anywhere in the world any time, regardless of expense. That would be a hard system to set up. So if you live in Maine, you know, we're going to fly you into California, put you up. I mean, you can see — and I'm not trying to make light of it — you can just see the difficulty.
"So any system we design, there are going to have to be some choices that have to be made in terms of where you go to see your doctor, what's going on, et cetera. That's being done currently in the private marketplace. All we're trying to do is to make sure that those decisions that are being made in the private marketplace aren't discriminating against people because they're already sick; that they are making sure that people get a good deal from the health care dollars that they are spending."
In other words, rationing is just a fact of life in a world with limited resources.
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You make it so easy.
"But the difference is, "every year" there hasn't been a public-option-to-single-payer push as hard/strong as this one. Don't you think it's a legitimate concern that, if people want to be able to get the flu shot if they can pay for it, that this could literally be the case for every vaccine out there, if only the government plan will pay for it? Especially if only the government plan is ALLOWED to pay for it?"
All I could notice from the above pasted text was that there two sentences and nothing to be made from it. Was it a statement, question? What was the question?
If you can lay it out so that common people can understand your question, I will bite.
Otherwise I take it that you, irrationally, posted a collection of words.
Troll? Who?
This has nothing to do with any potential changes to the health care we receive. This has to do with there being an initial limited supply, and our health care officials making recommendations about who should get it first, based upon medical considerations. Doctors are making the recommendations, not health insurance companies, and not some nameless non-medically trained bureaucrat in the government.
It's not a legitimate concern. It wasn't one back 5 years ago when there was again a shortage of the regular flu vaccine. It's never been an issue that if one has enough money, one should be able to force their way to the front of the line for getting a vaccine while it's in limited supply. We don't give out donor kidneys upon that basis - why would you think that vaccines would be an allowable place to give preferential treatment to richer people?
And what should the ability to PAY have anything to do with it? So, what, you think that a rich and otherwise healthy germophobe should get the shot before a Diabetic, Athsmatic or Immune-Suppressed patient, just because they have more money?! That's medically ridiculous, and very poor and inefficient public health policy.
MEDICAL NEED should determine who gets the vaccine first, or even at all, and nothing else. Let the doctors do their jobs and deploy the vaccine where it will have the most preventative or positive impact.
The ability to pay DOES NOT and SHOULD NOT ever enter into it.
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Where did YOU go to med school?!
This kind of scare tactic is pitiful. It is this kind of misinformation that can cause problems in administering the vaccine. It is Hannity the kind of person who goes to the emergency room when it is not necessary? According to this article, half of the visits to the emergency room were deemed unnecessary... could you imagine the effectiveness of our hospitals if people did not forgo regular doctor appointments?
Is Hannity the kind of person who advocates giving pills to patients for viral infections, when they should be dealt with your own immune system? Does he believe giving people unnecessary treatments is a good thing? Does he believe in raising the costs of health care simply because he believes the party in power is too liberal? Does he want to see America slip further down the WHO's list (although I have read an article from the CATO institute that claimed the WHO was a liberal organization that mashes up its facts)...
These talking heads on Fox News are reaching fro straws...
They used to think that the best plan was to immunize those people who would get the sickest from the disease. They have since moderated that plan because they now understand that a better way to stem epidemics is to immunize the people who SPREAD the epidemic - the little kids.
In addition, it is true that many elderly people seem to have some resistance to the H1N1 virus - it may be similar to another influenza bug from the past that young people have never been exposed to, or it may be some unique characteristic of the new bug that tends to be tougher on those kids. It's also tougher on pregnant women, and they aren't sure why that is.
Normally 90% of deaths from influenza are in the elderly. With this illness, it's the opposite - only 10% of the deaths are in the elderly so far.
"Neurosis is the inability to tolerate ambiguity
"Neurosis is the inability to tolerate ambiguity. . . . Neurotics complain of their illness, but they make the most of it, and when it comes to talking it away from them they will defend it like a lioness her young."
Everything is black & white to them
Let's flip this argument. Mr. Hannity, if this system is oppressive to you, where the most endangered get first dibs, then your bluster about free markets sheds some light on your opinion. You want to reserve the vaccines for those who can pay. That's your criteria of need, that's your measure of value: the highest bidder. So, regardless of need, the wealthy will always get vaccinated, right? Why not just advocate one dollar=one vote in this country and be done with it?
It was okay to put the people least at risk from serious consequences from flu infection at the bottom of the list 5 years ago. Now, suddenly, it's not?
And an off topic reminder to everyone - go get the regular flu vaccine - it's readily available.
You know the ones I mean, the ones that don't understand half of what he says but think that when he smiles and looks directly into the camera, he is talking to them personally.
When he says good night at the end of his show, they say goodnight back.
When he has a substitute host, they fear the worst and worry about him until he comes back on the show.
They are the ones that will forgo their medications in order to send money to help the poor corporations because Sean told them to.
These are the people who run to the bathroom to put their teeth back in before his show comes on.
These are the same people who trust the insurance company when they are told they don't need the operation to improve their quality of life.
These are the ones that will pray for rain for Obama's nomination speech but won't make the connection when their own convention is delayed due to a hurricane.
Those above are Sean's core audience, all the others are people from MMFA, Huff, Daily Kos, Comedy Central, and the late night talk shows who are just watching for their next article or comedy sketch.
Sean Hannity is the pimple on the ass of America and the only reason he is here on Earth is to make everyone else look good. Is that clear enough for you?
I was just pointing out an example of Hannity's audience from my town.
I don't think we're really looking at an either/or situation here.
Even though, we have all heard year in and year out, who should get the shots first, who should wait if you can, and so on.
Just more insane fear mongering by FoxNews and Hannity specifically.
They try to change the set times. The Swine Flu (H1N1) vaccine is being used in an attempt to abruptly kill significant numbers of population, to bring the population numbers (blood types A, B, O) well below 200 million. This is the purpose of forced vaccinations, to kill many all at once that have blood types A, B and O. The number of these blood types is quickly approaching 200 million. By abruptly bringing the population numbers below 200 million, they believe they can change the set times and beat their Creator. But, their end will still come at the appointed time – at that very hour and day predetermined long ago.
The vaccine will cause debilitating and chronic symptoms or death to those with blood types A, B & O. These blood types have damaged DNA and weakened immune systems.
The blood type AB is the normal healthy blood type with normal DNA and immune system.
For explanation see: http://www.unveilingthem.com/PoisoningOfMankindCopperDeficiency.htm
C.A. Bouthillier