Rationing of Health Care Resources is that miserable member of the Public Health family that is always pushed to the kiddies’ table in the bacchanal feast of American Health Care delivery , never to be mentioned in the polite conversation of its policymakers, physicians, wonks, etc. Le Sans Nom. Unlike the United Kingdom, where the criteria for use of scarce resources like kidney dialysis are way up front and totally assumed, in the USA we tend to tiptoe around this issue in a hypocritical, yet popular dance. We discussed this issue at length in our Columbia University Doctoral thesis.
Note. This reproduction of John Raphael Smith‘s picture of Edward Jenner, the English inventor of the modern vaccination techniques, was taken from Wikimedia Commons.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Edward_Jenner.jpg
On September 20, 2021, Ariana Eunjung Chua and Meryl Kornfeld wrote in the Washington Post that: “Kristen Solana Walkinshaw, a physician on the coronavirus triage committee at Providence Alaska Medical Center in Anchorage, found her team making one of the most agonizing decisions of their careers…Four patients needed continuous kidney dialysis, her colleague explained, but only two could be made available. How should I choose?”
The recent surge of the Delta variant affecting the scandalously high number of unvaccinated people that need immediate hospitalizations in the USA, has made the issue of the booster shots for the mRNA vaccines for Covid 19 much more relevant. Boosting might be eventually necessary in the general population that has already gotten the two-dosages of the mRNA mediated -vaccines due to the waning immune responses and the potential inefficacy of vaccines against newly surging variants.
On September 17, 2021, a scientific panel of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recommended that the booster shots for the Pfizer-BioNtech vaccine (Moderna has not yet submitted all the needed documentation) should be given to persons older than 65 years old, the immunocompromised and those with direct exposure to sever cases of SARS-CoV-2 infection only. The rest has to keep waiting. After Dr, Fauci publicly announced that there might be a need for a third booster shot , imprudently kowtowing to the undiplomatic move by the Biden administration to start offering them after September 20, this issue turned vitriolically political. How can Father-Knows-Best-Joe, who claimed in is campaign rallies that he would always follow science once he was in government, dared to put his chariot of convenience in front of the Faulkerian horse of tasking? Did you start lying, Papa Joe?
On September 13, 2021, an article in the Financial Times reported that: “two top scientists who recently announced their retirement form the US drug watchdog have criticised the policy of giving most people Covid 19-booster vaccinations, just days before the Biden administration plans to start doing so. Philip Krause and Marion Gruber, who resigned from the Drug and Food Administration two weeks ago, are among the authors of a scathing critique of widespread booster shots…”
Those two scientists joined a large group of colleagues that, in an Overview article of The Lancet on September 13, 2021, to make the point that the available scientific data so far does not justify the use of booster shots, except in special circumstances. They propose to use the available resources to boost the public vaccination drive for millions of people in the USA and elsewhere that have yet not had their first shot. They show their open disgust at the maladroit move of politicians to soil their turf.
In a personal level, let us confess that after being fully vaccinated with the Pfizer-BioNtech vaccine since February, we will take advantage of that opportunity due to our age. Our immunity might still be good and not a cause of concern….We follow Social Distancing guidelines…Mmm… However….
En tout cas.
Stay distant. Stay safe. Stay beautiful.
What do you think? Please tell us.
Don’t leave me alone.