Prisoners may get flu shots before the public

Posted Tuesday, Oct. 27, 2009 Comments   (0) Print Share Share Reprints
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By MIKE WARD 

Austin American-Statesman

Thousands of prison convicts could get vaccinations for swine flu before law-abiding Texas citizens because they fit the criteria for priority inoculations, officials said Tuesday.

Michelle Lyons, spokeswoman for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, said more than 45,000 convicts considered to be high-risk have been targeted to receive vaccines that could start arriving as soon as next week.

Officials also plan to inoculate more than 40,000 correctional officers and medical personnel who work with those prisoners and also are considered to be at high risk of developing the flu.

In all, Lyons said the prison system has asked for more than 158,000 doses of vaccine to inoculate all convicts in state prisons and state-contracted private prisons against the H1N1 virus. "We have been told that we will start receiving doses by around the first of November in lots of 25,000," she said.

If that holds true, prisoners in some parts of Texas could get their shots before members of the general public who might need them, a situation that recently triggered public outcry in Massachusetts. A lawmaker there last week called for the vaccines to be given to the public first.

Texas officials say that’s off point.

Lyons and the Texas Department of State Health Services officials said the decision on who gets the vaccines is set by a distribution policy established by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

While the state prisons have requested vaccines, Tarrant County Sheriff’s Department spokesman Terry Grisham said he was not aware of any special requests for medicine. So far, he only knows of once case of H1N1.

"I don’t think we have any plans for any kind of a mass inoculation," he said.

Read the complete story at statesman.com.

Staff writer Alex Branch contributed to this report.

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