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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Amy J who wrote (255713)	10/17/2005 1:16:29 PM
From: tejek	Respond to of 1572604

RE: "its important for everyone to get some Tamiflu or Relenza and keep it on hand [please note some are claiming that Relenza is better" You can't get it from your doctor. They are witholding the Rx. I asked last year when no one needed it, so I wouldn't be one of those people that demand it at the last minute. I was surprised the doctor refused to write the Rx more than a year ago during the summer. What was his excuse? That's outrageous. I wonder if that's typical. In fact, if all doctors were preventive and wrote out Rx last year or the year before, you would have a smooth curve for demand and wouldn't have a situation where everyone asks for it at the last minute. I agree. BTW I got my flu shot yesterday. No one hassled me re. that issue. I think consumers should be allowed to purchase what they want. If people want to spend $20 to reserve a flu shot or $100 for tamiflu, people should have that right to do so - no doctor should block people's preventive measures - but that's very typcial of the USA system - everything has to be an emergency. That's strange. Here.......they give flu shots everywhere. I got mine in a supermarket after I got my groceries. You just have to sign a waiver form. The USA has a flu vaccine problem because they do not get a "guaranteed demand", according to vaccine CEOs. Well, if these vaccine companies took orders from consumer retail directly so and made consumers pay in advance for their order that would fix that particular problem. Yes, there are several problems but that is a big one. But even with guarantees, there is another problem in that the vaccines are not big money makers. Think about it.......a whole plant has to sit there for six months waiting for the vaccinations to reach their maximum potential. And then the average person pays only $20 per shot. I am sure in the end that amounts to a few pennies profit per shot. There are more profitable uses for the plant space than devoting it to vaccines. Having governmental guarantees to pay for them will help but they also need to guarantee against lawsuits. There is always someone suing because they think they have had bad reaction to a flu shot. The first time I got a flu shot I heard so many horror stories. "My little sister got the flu so we all had to get flu shots and I was as sick as a dog from the shot bla bla bla." I'd hear comments like that every time I considered getting the shot. For a 3-4 year period, I was getting bronchitis every 3-4 mos. and my cousin strongly recommended I get a flu shot every year so that things would not get worse. Every time I got a shot people would chime in with these worrisome stories. Then the last time I got the shot this guy was in line and we were talking about it. At the time, he had two kids one 5; the other 4 and he said he had been getting a flu shot every year since his kids were born in order not to give to the flu to his kids. He said not once had he had any reaction to the shot and he thought all the bad reaction stories were the stuff of urban legends. Fortunately, in the last 2-3 years I have not had to get a flu shot because I no longer get bronchitis. So yesterday was the first time I had gotten a shot in awhile but I didn't think twice about it. I saw the sign when I went into the store and got it after I checked out. The system should allow any person to buy their own flu shot in advance. That would be too difficult to pull off. I think the best we can expect are governmental guarantees for payment whether the vaccines are used or not. Tamiflu requires a prescription, but the medical industry should allow a patient to get the Rx and pay for it yourself even if the medical clinic refuses to pay for it. Like you said, it'll be the healthy people the flu will target and believe it or not - not every doctor realizes that's how it was with the prior flu pandemic. Apparently pandemic wasn't required reading in medical school. Yeah, I was surprised by that one. I had never read before that 20/30 somethings were the big victims in the avian flu. What has worried me is what if you get the regular flu; then the avian flu or visa versa. Talk about a double whammy. Yikes! ted

To: Amy J who wrote (255713)	12/21/2005 9:28:52 PM
From: steve harris	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1572604

Amy, you don't have to worry about your Tamiflu prescriptions..... foxnews.com Wednesday, December 21, 2005 WASHINGTON — In a development health experts are calling alarming, two bird flu patients in Vietnam died after developing resistance to Tamiflu, the key drug that governments are stockpiling in case of a large-scale outbreak.