So let’s make a distinction here between seasonal flu, which is the flu that we get - we see every winter, and pandemic flu or swine flu, what we’re seeing right now. Welcome to Democracy Now! Well, why don’t you answer that question, the title of your piece: “Does the Vaccine Matter,” Shannon Brownlee? Her latest article in The Atlantic magazine, co-authored with Jeanne Lenzer, is called “Does the Vaccine Matter?” Shannon Brownlee is also author of the bestselling Overtreated: Why Too Much Medicine Is Making Us Sicker and Poorer.

Shannon Brownlee is an award-winning journalist, author, senior research fellow at the New America Foundation.

Well, my next guest is asking a very different set of questions about how the US should be dealing with swine flu. Thomas Frieden called swine flu a, quote, “young person’s flu” at a news conference Friday and said health authorities are releasing the country’s entire stock of children’s Tamiflu antivirals. The Center for Disease Control, or CDC, estimates swine flu is now widespread across forty-eight states in the country and has led to the deaths of 114 children since the spring. The media is abuzz with questions over the shortage of vaccines and the effectiveness of the Obama administration’s response to the pandemic. The government’s vaccination program that began last month is described as the most ambitious vaccination program since the anti-polio campaign of the ‘50s. One week after President Obama declared swine flu a national emergency, demand for the H1N1 vaccine continues to outstrip supply.

Overtreated by Shannon Brownlee