Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, September 30, 1994 TAG: 9409300036
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-12 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
That's the question parents will be asked Saturday in government ads kicking off a massive new effort to immunize U.S. children completely before they turn 2 years old.
``This is not a one-shot burst of energy,'' said Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala, who unveiled the ads Thursday. ``We are building a permanent system for immunizing every generation of American children.''
Saturday is the start of the Vaccines For Children program, the latest chapter in President Clinton's $500 million Childhood Immunization Initiative.
Under the program, any child who is impoverished or uninsured or whose insurance doesn't cover vaccines can get free immunizations from any public clinic and certain private doctors. So can any American Indian or Eskimo child.
The program will provide vaccines against measles, whooping cough, diphtheria, tetanus, mumps, rubella, polio, hepatitis B and Haemophilus influenza B. It takes 11 shots over at least five doctor visits for full protection.
But the program has been highly controversial, with drug companies and Congress criticizing government plans to deliver vaccines directly to private doctors in states that don't have their own delivery system. So, Shalala scrapped that idea and is now negotiating to pay drug companies to deliver their own vaccines.
That means all public health clinics will offer the program starting Saturday, but the program will not be offered through private doctors in 24 states, including Virginia.
Virginia and the remaining states will offer the shots through private doctors once the government concludes its delivery contracts, but Shalala couldn't say when that would happen.
The Childhood Immunization Initiative aims to immunize 90 percent of American children fully by age 2.
by CNB