Bay area woman dies after collapsing during wait for flu vaccine
Associated Press
LAFAYETTE, Calif. - A 79-year-old woman who stood in line more than four hours for a flu shot collapsed and died after striking her head.
Marie Franklin and her husband, Robert, had been standing with hundreds of other seniors outside a Safeway supermarket on Wednesday when she became pale and weak. She collapsed as she started walking toward shade.
Franklin, an award-winning local artist, died from those injuries Thursday. The Contra Costa County coroner's office ruled the death an accident.
"I think they didn't expect so many people to come and so they weren't prepared," the Franklins' daughter, Ginni Poulos, said Friday. "I know they were just caught off guard, and it wasn't their fault."
The nation's limited supply of flu vaccine has led to long lines at offices and stores offering vaccinations. Most of those waiting in line are the elderly and young children, who are most susceptible to influenza.
The Franklins arrived at the Safeway at 8 a.m. and found hundreds of people already in line. Sometime between noon and 12:30 p.m., Marie Franklin got out of line to wait in the shade, leaving her husband to hold their spot.
She fainted and fell backward, striking her head on an electric meter box.
"She was standing the entire time, with nowhere to sit and no shade," said Poulos, who flew to her parents' home in the San Francisco Bay area city of Orinda on Thursday from her home in Portland, Ore.
Teena Massingill, Safeway public affairs manager, said employees brought out chairs, snacks and water for people waiting in line. Many had lined up well before the shots began at 10 a.m. She said employees handed out numbers in the early afternoon, sending people home who were not going to be able to get one of the 500 shots available.
"It wasn't a drastic number of people who were told they couldn't be seen," Massingill said. "We're trying to provide these vaccines in the best way that we possibly can."
Police in Concord, another East Bay city, reported that two other seniors, women ages 76 and 83, were hospitalized Thursday after collapsing outside a Costco store from possible heat exhaustion while waiting in a long line for the vaccine.
The government has urged healthy adults to skip the shots after British regulators shut down shipments of vaccine that accounted for nearly half the nation's supply after some batches were contaminated with bacteria.
Well, that sucks. But it's really funny in a sick, demented way. Life really is colorful, isn't it?
The flu vaccine is in very short supply this year because one of the two companies which makes the vaccine had all of it's product recalled.
My hospital has had to change it's plans on what it's going to do with our flu vaccine since we happened to get all we ordered because we were lucky enough to buy from the company that didn't have the recall.
Currently people who are in direct contact with patients will be allowed to get the vaccine. This doesn't include me which isn't a big deal. Last year was the first year in probably 10 years or more that I got one. I've never been a huge fan of the things since they tend to make me feel cruddy for the rest of the day. I'll just have to make sure I keep washing my hands and face a lot and avoid touching my eyes and nose.
Supposedly if we have any vaccine left over it is going to go to treat the workers at other hospitals and then it could go to the geezers...I mean seniors who need it.
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Open, locks,
Whoever knocks.
Just pay the extra 15 bucks and get the Flumist (nasal). That's what I'm doing. Shit, I mean, isn't it worth not waiting in line for hours? It is to me. I know the flu is nothing to fuck with. it's amazing what people will do to save a few bucks.
Tsyroc wrote:The flu vaccine is in very short supply this year because one of the two companies which makes the vaccine had all of it's product recalled.
My hospital has had to change it's plans on what it's going to do with our flu vaccine since we happened to get all we ordered because we were lucky enough to buy from the company that didn't have the recall.
Currently people who are in direct contact with patients will be allowed to get the vaccine. This doesn't include me which isn't a big deal. Last year was the first year in probably 10 years or more that I got one. I've never been a huge fan of the things since they tend to make me feel cruddy for the rest of the day. I'll just have to make sure I keep washing my hands and face a lot and avoid touching my eyes and nose.
Supposedly if we have any vaccine left over it is going to go to treat the workers at other hospitals and then it could go to the geezers...I mean seniors who need it.
The situation is the same here in Sweden with shortage of flu vaccine as we were dependent on the same company in the UK. Here in Sweden, all senior citizens (65 and older) gets the flu shots for free. Important to remember is that flu vaccine isn't a guarantee that you won't get sick, as there are two different strains of influenza, the A and the B strains. The companies producing vaccine must estimate (in reality more or less guess) what kind of strain that will be prevalent during the year. So, if you get sick despite of the flu shot, don't blame the pharmaceutical company, but the force of nature.
Chardok wrote:Just pay the extra 15 bucks and get the Flumist (nasal). That's what I'm doing. Shit, I mean, isn't it worth not waiting in line for hours? It is to me. I know the flu is nothing to fuck with. it's amazing what people will do to save a few bucks.
People with weakened immune systems and the elderly are not supposed to use the inhaled vaccine as it uses live viruses.
"I have also a paper afloat, with an electromagnetic theory of light, which, till I am convinced to the contrary, I hold to be great guns."
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Chardok wrote:Just pay the extra 15 bucks and get the Flumist (nasal). That's what I'm doing. Shit, I mean, isn't it worth not waiting in line for hours? It is to me. I know the flu is nothing to fuck with. it's amazing what people will do to save a few bucks.
People with weakened immune systems and the elderly are not supposed to use the inhaled vaccine as it uses live viruses.
Right, but I'm talking about the dipstick healthy adults and adolescents who are clogging up the lines so the elderly and sick have to wait like that, you know?
Chardok wrote:Just pay the extra 15 bucks and get the Flumist (nasal). That's what I'm doing. Shit, I mean, isn't it worth not waiting in line for hours? It is to me. I know the flu is nothing to fuck with. it's amazing what people will do to save a few bucks.
People with weakened immune systems and the elderly are not supposed to use the inhaled vaccine as it uses live viruses.
Right, but I'm talking about the dipstick healthy adults and adolescents who are clogging up the lines so the elderly and sick have to wait like that, you know?
i didn't even know they offered the vaccine to healthy people adults. I've never heard of that being done here.
We have the same shortage here, being in the UK and all.
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Canada still has loads of vaccine. I got mine today, and only waited a whole 10 minutes. I'm an asthmatic and have a very weak immune system, so it's recommended that I get vaccinated.
I'm wondering, would this protect me from the avian flu pandemic that will soon be upon us?
Admiral Valdemar wrote:Flu vaccines are a bloody sham.
Not as much a sham as chicken pox vaccine .
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Well, Chicken Pox is a decidedly nasty thing to get, though more so as an adult than a kid. I had it as a kid, so I'm pretty much immune. Getting it as an adult is life threatening, so a plan to eradicate it is good, execution can be bad though. The recent fuck-ups over MMR spring to mind (though that's parents thinking they know more than their national health authority's immunologists).
Chardok wrote:Just pay the extra 15 bucks and get the Flumist (nasal). That's what I'm doing. Shit, I mean, isn't it worth not waiting in line for hours? It is to me. I know the flu is nothing to fuck with. it's amazing what people will do to save a few bucks.
FluMist is contra-indicated for many of the people at highest risk of flu complications. Current thinking/practice is that those who suffer from asthma or other chronic lung problems should not take FluMist and would therefore need the old-style vaccine shots. So it isn't always about saving money.
Admiral Valdemar wrote:I've not heard so much on the newsfeeds lately about it. It may have burnt itself out after a fluke human transmission, but better safe than sorry.
The Thai government acted very vigorously and dismissed several ministers over failure to rapidly get ahold of it; they also started the mass extermination of their poultry population in certain areas ala what was done to successfully contain the outbreak in Hong Kong. It might be a bit early but I'm going to wager we dodged the bullet one more time.
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