| | | "Nothing in that article convinces me of your assertion."
Nothing will, and there's no way to put it to the test.
PREPARING FOR PANDEMIC FLU HEARING before the SPECIAL COMMITTEE ON AGING UNITED STATES SENATE MAY 25, 2006 Prepared Statement of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton
Thank you, Chairman Smith and Senator Kohl, for calling
this hearing today, and bringing attention to the issues of the
elderly population in pandemic situations.
In many of our discussions around pandemic influenza, we
have been looking back at the events of 1918, when young,
healthy individuals bore the brunt of illness and death.
But when you consider the other pandemics of the 20th
century--those that occurred in 1957 and 1969--the elderly were
among those that were hardest hit by the virus.
The pattern in the 1957 and 1969 pandemics mirrored those
that we see every year during our seasonal flu epidemic, when
we have over 36,000 deaths and more than 200,000
hospitalizations that are concentrated among elderly
individuals, who are at greater risk of complications from the
flu.
As such, I think that we need to increase our preparedness
for the special needs of senior citizens to ensure that they
will be able to continue to access necessary medical and
support services without interruption.
But what is particularly worrisome to me, when thinking
about our nation's ability to help seniors get the vaccines and
antivirals that will help them survive a pandemic, is the fact
that we aren't even prepared to deal with the seasonal
influenza epidemic that we face--that we know with certainty
that we will face every single year.
Since 2000, we have had multiple shortages of seasonal flu
vaccine. We all recall senior citizens lining up for hours to
obtain flu vaccine, unscrupulous distributors attempting to
sell scarce vaccine to the highest bidder, and millions of
Americans delaying or deferring necessary flu shots.
Because we don't have a system through which to track
vaccine, we can't ensure the supplies that we do have reach the
highest priority populations--including seniors and the
chronically ill--who should get vaccinated as early as possible
in any given flu season.
I've introduced legislation with Senator Pat Roberts, the
Influenza Vaccine Security Act, that would help us make some
positive changes in our nation's system for distributing,
tracking and delivering seasonal flu vaccine.
Our legislation would establish a tracking system through
which we could better trace the distribution of vaccine from
the factory to the provider and identify counties with high
numbers of priority populations, including senior citizens.
With such a system in place, we could easily determine in
times of shortage where vaccine was most needed and facilitate
distribution to those areas to help our elderly get the shots
that they need. All of this could take place in a matter of
hours, rather than days or weeks.
It simply makes sense to establish an operational tracking
system for vaccine distribution that can be used in both
seasonal and pandemic events, rather than rely on untried
mechanisms in an emergency situation where we will already be
facing multiple obstacles to delivery of health care--in
particular, life saving care for elderly populations.
I look forward to working my colleagues on this committee
to continue to raise awareness of the needs of senior citizens
in pandemic and other emergency situations. Thank you.
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