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Thursday, November 27, 2003The influenza vaccine has always been a shot-in-the-arm proposition -- until this year, when a quick, painless spritz up the nose was offered as an alternative. But as the peak flu season draws nearer, consumers are ignoring the nasal vaccine known as FluMist. Not even a nine-week, $25 million advertising campaign has overcome the vaccine's obstacles: storage difficulties, a different target audience, the use of a live virus, problems training pharmacists to administer the drug and, most obviously, cost. ``We had a lot of phone calls (asking about FluMist),'' said Tom Nameth, Discount Drug Mart's director of pharmacy operations, ``but once they found out the price, that was the big turnoff.'' Most doctors aren't surprised. ``None of us expected it to catch on,'' said Dr. Ellen Kempf, medical director of Children's Hospital Physician Associates. ``The company kept telling us what a great influx this would be and we said, `Huh? We don't think so.' ``It's, what, five times the cost? As soon as you tell a family this... they say, `Forget that.' It also has to be stored in a non-defrosting freezer. Who's going to go out and purchase a freezer just to store an expensive vaccine that few people want, especially when there's a cheaper alternative? posted by Sydney on 11/27/2003 08:49:00 AM 0 comments 0 Comments: |
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