We should be more afraid of flu than we are of Ebola, according to Arthur L. Caplan, Ph.D. “We are so used to flu deaths we don’t take it seriously,” he said.
Caplan is an expert on medical ethics. He thinks health care workers should have to get an annual flu shot. The Flu kills children and elderly people more than others, and to contract the flu in a hospital, where a person goes because he or she is already ill, is especially dangerous.
Caplan is the Drs. William F. and Virginia Connolly Mitty Professor of Bioethics and Director of the Division of Medical Ethics at NYU Langone Medical Center. With a fierce expression, he said of people who won’t get a flu shot, “If you choose not to do that I can sue you if you kill my kid.”
The flu vaccine is far from perfect, but it is our only real defense against this illness.
, University of Pittsburgh Medical Center
