Tag Archives: flu shot

Public broadcasters have H1N1 site for journalists

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Public Radio Exchange’s FluPortal.org, funded by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and done in collaboration with NPR, aims to provide public media with resources for reporting on H1N1.

Led by a regularly updated and authoritative blog, the site also impresses with a selection of Web tools, including widgets and embeddable multimedia, for media outlets to use on their own sites, up-to-date reference materials and examples of what others have done. The portal’s handling of new media and both official and unofficial online sources alone makes it worth a visit, especially given its current update frequency and timeliness.

Andrew Van Dam of The Wall Street Journal previously worked at the AHCJ offices while earning his master’s degree at the Missouri School of Journalism.

Tracking H1N1 shots, in Texas and beyond

Jeffrey Weiss of The Dallas Morning News reports that he was able, via an open records request, to get a full list of organizations in Texas that have requested H1N1 vaccines, as well as list of all shipments ordered. The list doesn’t include any public health departments, and is led by large hospitals and mass vaccinators.

On a national scale, the HHS-maintained flu.gov has an updated list of the number of doses of H1N1 vaccine that have been shipped to states, territories and regions thus far. And for your readers or viewers who are trying to get the shots, Google has a flu shot finder map for both H1N1 and seasonal flu vaccines.

Andrew Van Dam of The Wall Street Journal previously worked at the AHCJ offices while earning his master’s degree at the Missouri School of Journalism.

NPR answers H1N1 questions

With H1N1 and the mini-pandemic of rumors that seem to follow it on the rise, NPR brought out the big guns in an attempt to answer reader/listener questions and get the facts straight.

NPR’s health editors, Joe Neel and Anne Gudenkauf, teamed up with Dr. Andrew Pekosz and Dr. William Schaffner to tackle your questions.
Pekosz is an expert on viruses and immunology and a professor at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Schaffner is an infectious disease expert and professor at Vanderbilt University.

They answer questions like “Do H1N1 and other flu vaccines work?”; “Are they dangerous?”; “Who’s immune?”; “Should I be vaccinated for both H1N1 and typical seasonal flu?” and more.

(Hat tip to NPR Health Blog’s Scott Hensley. In that post, Hensley does a great job of summarizing the highlights of the Q&A.)

Andrew Van Dam of The Wall Street Journal previously worked at the AHCJ offices while earning his master’s degree at the Missouri School of Journalism.

Prisons to get H1N1 vaccines before everyone else?

Poynter’s Al Tompkins, always quick to seize on an interesting emerging story, rounds up reports that inmates are getting H1N1 vaccines before the general population.

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McNeil Island Prison, in Puget Sound off the coast of Washington State, where some prisoners have already been vaccinated. Photo by worldislandinfo.com via Flickr.

Predictably, this revelation has spawned a bit of outrage. According to Tompkins, the vaccines go to prisons because they are high-risk areas in which a large number of people live in close quarters.

Andrew Van Dam of The Wall Street Journal previously worked at the AHCJ offices while earning his master’s degree at the Missouri School of Journalism.