# 3998
Arthur Caplan, Ph.D., who is director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania, has written a scathing assessment of our nation’s response to the H1N1 pandemic in a commentary appearing on the MSNBC website.
In it he takes politicians, health care workers, and dispensers of conspiratorial Internet malarkey to task. He believes the nation is `Flunking the Swine Flu Test’, and isn’t reticent to say so.
Opinion: U.S. swine flu response dismal at best
Vaccine delays, priority breakdowns raise fears about a worse crisis ahead
Commentary By Arthur Caplan, Ph.D.
updated 5:48 p.m. ET, Mon., Nov . 9, 2009
Few seem to want to say so, but this nation has mounted a dismal response to the swine flu epidemic.
By dismal I mean this: There’s not nearly enough swine vaccine to go around, there are conflicted messages about when the doses and antiviral supplies will arrive and half of all Americans are reporting they are too afraid to get the vaccine even if they are able to find it.
Health care workers are throwing fits when directed to take the vaccine, even if they work around high-risk patients, and there’s a breakdown of a strict distribution system to make sure the vaccine we do have is used to protect and save the most lives.
We have had the better part of a year to get ready for swine flu. And yet, the response to the pandemic H1N1 outbreak has been lousy. What would happen if a hostile power launched a large-scale bioterrorism attack against us with no warning?
The Obama administration bears much of the blame for the fear the public and health care workers have of the swine flu vaccine. The facts do not square with the fear.
