Guest post: Plan to give H1N1 vaccine in schools should be restored

October 26, 9:44 AMSF Education ExaminerCaroline Grannan

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This is a guest post by San Francisco parent Stan Goldberg, who raises concerns about the San Francisco public health decision not to administer the vaccine against the H1N1 flu strain in schools.

Stan, who has adult children and became a dad again at age 58, runs the Senior Dad multimedia project, a new journalistic approach to education coverage. Here's his commentary:

Doing the parenting thing for the second time might lull you into a sense of complacency because you've seen most of it before.

Oh it's a new world all right, but some things stay the same. Like most parents, the thing that really gets my attention is safety for my child. I can take risks, but when it comes to my child I try to take none.

This flu season is particularly troubling to me. The H1N1 flu strain attacks children more severely than any other age group, and just this past week , our country has surpassed the yearly death of children due to flu in an average year. Of those deaths, almost 20% have occurred in the past week. This is an indicator to me that there was a genuine risk to our children.

We also know from previous flu epidemics that the flu can take a break in midwinter and can then forge back at greater strength. So I looked into where our city stands in protecting our children from H1N1.

The vaccine that your child can receive can be in one of two forms: a live virus which the child inhales or an inoculation. A child under 10 needs two treatments of the inhaled protection three weeks apart.

That's the good news. The bad news is that the nasal protection is in very short supply. Doctor’s offices have long waiting lists. It is unknown if the demand will be met. As for the inoculation supplies, they have been delayed and now are projected to reach our city by the end of October.

Initially there had been talk of the vaccine being given to children at the school sites. The logic behind this is clear: Go where the children are. The San Francisco Department of Public Health drew up a plan to inoculate in the schools. The department then decided to use a different plan that uses private practitioners and satellite clinics. This model can best be described as the child coming to the shot.

Now that the flu vaccine has been delayed, the time to inoculate everyone has been compressed. We now know from surveys around the country that many people will not seek out inoculations for their children for a variety of reasons.

I feel it is within the interests of the children of the city for the Department of Public Health to revisit its previous plan and put in its place the plan it developed to inoculate through the schools. Given the current conditions, not to do so, in my opinion, will reduce the number of poor and disadvantaged children that receive flu shots.

The decisions around giving flu shots should be guided by the principles of providing the maximum protection for all our children. I know many of the citizens of our city would celebrate such a change in direction.

-- Stan Goldberg