NIH Official Supports Culling Out the Elderly

That's right--when you have limited amounts of vaccine and a looming problem with Social Security benefits that will soon be due and payable to the baby boomers:

Flu Vaccine Priorities Test Pandemic Planning

By Ceci Connolly
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, May 12, 2006

<snip>

In the event of a global flu pandemic, federal officials have said they intend to give vaccine first to health-care workers, followed by the oldest, sickest patients, a policy aimed at saving the most lives. But one of the government's top medical ethicists is challenging that approach, arguing it is more appropriate to give young adults priority because they are at higher risk of dying in a flu pandemic and still have many productive years left.

"Most people have the intuition to say, 'Give it to my 19-year-old. I got to 65; I've lived a good life,'" said Ezekiel Emanuel, head of the bioethics department at the National Institutes of Health. "We are not interested in purely the number of lives , but also life-years."

<snip>

Emanuel and co-author Alan Wertheimer, writing in today's issue of the journal Science, spell out an alternative ranking, with medical workers first and young adults next, followed by people ages 41 to 50 and finally those 51 and older.

<snip>

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/11/AR2006051101601.html

be able pay exhorbatant prices....for inflated product....

cretins would put us in work camps--not when they have built prisons to keep us in.

I think Halliburton has the contract for it, (no lie). Some sort of encampments here on US soil for what purpose??

"Culling" will happen along racial lines as well as by age

so does this mean Bushco doesn't get it? bring it on

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

i had heard it made more sense to vaccinate kids then older folks, as it is kids who are out and about picking up the germs and spreading them.

it is also true that we have a lot of boomers, and a lot fewer younger people.

suppose that a flu pandemic (whether it was bird flu or not is irrelevant) were to hit and start killing the productive workers. The economy would suffer. The old would die because they depend on the younger workers to produce and to care for them.

we'd call the boomers "old" and needing help from the young to survive. They're between 42 and 60 years old and many can still walk and even work.

I've seen some charts that go to 1961- making 45

but perhaps saying boomers is the wrong thing

let's say those over 65

those people born between 1946 and 1964, so actually those born later in 64 are still 41. Had to laugh when I heard of them as old, but I did get your general idea.

When I think of boomers I actually think of those who came of age in the 60's, really the first half decade or so. They're the ones who did the protests, got Woodstock, got drafted. Those born in the mid 50's and later don't have much history in common. We all got to walk through the doors the elder boomers helped crash open.

Don't know how they decide on generations, no wonder there are so many boomers...22 years compared to 13 and 15 years

Baby boomers (born between 1946-1964)
Generation X (born between 1965-1978)
Generation Y (born between 1979-1994)

Well I got sidetracked. I do agree younger adults should be protected before the elderly. The 1918 pandemic had such an unusually high death rate among people 20–40 years of age, the very highest between 25-30 years old. Those with weaker immune systems, the extreme age ranges, that are usually at risk had a higher survival rate than the healthy young adults.
So perhaps with brand new infections those with the strongest immune systems are prone to "cytokine storm" with the immune system reacting so strongly that it caused a systemic inflammatory response syndrome?

We don't want to lose the generation that are raising the kids.

they all provide health insurance for the same-sex partners of their employees.

If/when a Pandemic hits, we have to convince the anti-gay Evangelical Xians and Conservative Catholics to put their money-- and their bigotry-- where their mouth is.

They should boycott the vaccines and the Tamiflu and put their lives in the hands of Jay-Zuss... and in the Miracle Spring Water they sell on The 700 Club.