The Vaccine Dilemma

By Clayton Neuman

An ethical quandary: If the U.S. faced a deadly flu pandemic with only a limited supply of vaccine, who should get treated? Federal guidelines--and conventional wisdom--give priority to health-care workers, the youngest, the frail and the elderly. But Minnesota is the first state to suggest otherwise. A panel including government officials, doctors and ethicists concluded that inoculations should be given first to key workers like police and nurses, then to those who would respond best to treatment--healthy 15-to-40-year-olds, not infants or seniors. "A worst-case scenario poses the hardest questions," says panelist Karen Gervais, a health-care ethicist. This strategy "is intended to protect the most people in the most vital ways." But the panel also decided that society's weakest could and should be helped in other ways, such as quarantine.