Americans run to Mexico for flu shot

REYNOSA, Mexico (Reuters) - Americans unable to find this year's scarce flu vaccine at home are crossing the Rio Grande to buy the shot in Mexican border towns, where pharmacies are struggling to meet demand.

The United States lost nearly half its expected supply of flu vaccine earlier this month when authorities in Britain closed a Chiron Corp. factory that supplies the American market due to contamination fears, triggering a nationwide hunt for shots.

Two major pharmacy chains in the Mexican city of Reynosa, across from McAllen, Texas, said Friday they were struggling to find supplies of commercial vaccines to meet a growing demand from Americans crossing the border.

"Right now the demand is coming not from Mexico but from the United States, and supplies are very scarce on the market," said Jose anuel Hernandez, a branch manager of the 18-strong Benavides chain of pharmacies in Reynosa.

Does this strike anyone else as fecking absurd?

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What have you done for your people today?

Is it the fact that Americans want to get immunised?

Is it the fact that they have to go to Mexico?

Or is it the fact that the British government closed down a pharmaceutical plant because of fears that it could harm people as opposed to helping them?

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"I see no reason why...there should not arise a United States of Europe" Winston Churchill, 1946

...the idea of fleeing to Mexico for your precious flu shot is absurd. I find the concept generally absurd as a rule, but to think you need such a thing to such an extent simply strikes me as ignorant.

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What have you done for your people today?

Most people that visit Mexico wouldn't think of drinking the water there. But some are willing to let some bordertown doctor inject you with something? Not me.

ps. Not a knock on Mexico. We vacation there every year.

The very reason there is not a huge flu epidemic every year, like it was up to the start of 20th century where it was often fatal; is due to people getting immunised and taking proper precautions.

Just cos the doctor is Mexican doesn't mean he's incapable. The needle comes in a sealed plastic bag-thing. Any doctor worth his salt will don clean gloves for every injection. The chances of infections are almost zero if the proper precautions are taken, wherever you are.

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"I see no reason why...there should not arise a United States of Europe" Winston Churchill, 1946

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"The heart of the wise inclines to the right, but the heart of the fool to the left."
Ecclesiastes 10:2 (NIV)

I did not know that the Mexican medical profession was so substandard.

Maybe you would consider trying Cuba where I hear the health care for citizens is second to none.

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"A man's work is nothing but this slow trek to rediscover, through the detours of art, those two or three great and simple images in whose presence his heart first opened."

Oh yeah I heard that too. It's one of the best socialized medical programs in the world. Of course that's not saying much.

I wonder if Fidel is having to be put on a waiting list right now for breaking his knee and wrist in that nasty fall he took this past week. I suppose that even in a Communist country there are some exceptions to the rule.

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"The heart of the wise inclines to the right, but the heart of the fool to the left."
Ecclesiastes 10:2 (NIV)

Yep, that was what I meant, the drugs, not the doctors would be my concern. Add to that, given the shortage, there would seem to be money to made selling bogus flu vaccine. In this country as well.

I think it's absurd too. I usually get a flu shot every year....but will skip this year. Big deal. I have family members who NEVER get a flu shot and NEVER get the flu. They are more afraid of getting one than not. It's silly, really. This is a clear example of when people think there's a shortage of something, they go nuts clamoring to make sure they get it. Makes me wonder how well-behaved everyone would be if we ran out of something important....like, say.......OIL.

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Clintonite after Clintonite. My question is, "So when does this so-called CHANGE start?"