A clumsy and ignorant swine flu policy

A week before the first rounds of mass vaccination against swine flu are due to begin in Germany discussions have broken out about whether the vaccination makes sense. The Frankfurter Rundschau comments: "Experts and those who claim to be experts are raising the alarm; the media are busily painting the picture of a two-class medicine and politicians are reacting with a mixture of clumsiness and ignorance. The consequence: millions of citizens who should be vaccinated against swine flu - and at one point actually wanted to be - are vacillating. The current problem is less a medical one than a matter of organisation and communication. Why are we learning only now, weeks after the pandemic alarm went off, that the government signed special contracts with the pharmaceutical companies long ago. Does one ministry know what the other is doing? And what about the independence of state-related vaccination committees? The questions are coming hard and fast and they're leaving our wonderful federal system looking pretty pathetic."

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