O.C. PLATFORM : Worth the Price

Flu is bad, but it used to be worse. Whooping cough, measles and polio epidemics were more devastating than flu, but immunizations can eliminate them--for a cost. Developing, marketing and insuring immunizations is very expensive and, of course, the price is passed down to the patient.

Worldwide, the level of immunization has dramatically improved because of World Health Organization-sponsored free immunizations. In the United States, free immunization clinics are funded through state health departments, which are chronically underfunded, made worse by increases in cost and addition of new vaccines.

To make matters worse, insurance often does not cover (immunizations). So, unless the patient knows of the clinics, many are forced to do without. The recent epidemics of measles and increase in whooping cough cases in the United States testify to this problem, and unless it is addressed, we as a country will be worse off than some of the Third World countries.