Triage! Will You Be Denied Treatment for Swine Flu?

While it may sound like something out of a bad sci-fi movie, it has become our reality. US doctors, in accordance with WHO regulations, have drafted a document deciding who will live and who will be allowed to die when the Swine Flu Pandemic strikes the greater part of North America.

Once Swine Flu has America in its death grip, medical care -- including everything from vaccines to respirators to doctors and nurses themselves -- will become scarce. So a task force of members from prestigious universities, medical groups, and government agencies (the Department of Homeland Security, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Department of Health and Human Services, and World Health Organization) has compiled a list of people who would not be treated.

Those of us most affected by this decision can easily see this as an attempt to "play God" on the part of these doctors who so willingly ignore their Hippocratic oaths, but Dr. Asha Devereaux, a critical care specialist and lead writer of the task force report, called the guidelines a "blueprint for hospitals so that everybody will be thinking in the same way."

It's being recommended that every hospital choose a triage team to decide who will get lifesaving treatment and who will not, but the guidelines already spells out those who will be denied care. They include:


People older than 85

People with severe trauma, such as critical injuries from car crashes and shootings

Severely burned patients older than 60

People with severe mental impairment, such as advanced Alzheimer's disease

People with severe chronic disease, such as advanced heart failure, lung disease or poorly controlled diabetes

Others who are at a high risk of death or have a low chance of long-term survival would also be unlikely to receive medical care.

The guidelines will clearly violate laws against age discrimination and disability discrimination, according to public health law expert Lawrence Gostin of Georgetown University. Gostin also called the report "a political and legal minefield."

Though most experts acknowledge that health care will, in fact, need to be rationed once Swine Flu infections begin, the current list will basically single out the poor blacks, Mexicans, homosexuals, non-English-speaking peoples and any others who are generally considered as undesirables in America. Because in addition to this list, the triage team will, at its discretion, decide on millions of others who will be arbitrarily denied medical treatment.

As for when the guidelines will be enforced, members of the task force said it's only a matter of time. Phase Five Pandemic Alert means that a pandemic with millions infected, dead, and dying is imminent. It WILL happen!

According to Secretary Michael O. Leavitt, Department of Health and Human Services:

"Forty million people died when the last major influenza pandemic swept around the world in 1918. We have seen two less severe pandemics since then. We will no doubt see another sometime in the future.

We don't know when, and we don't know how bad it will be. But we know it will happen sooner or later and that what we do now will save lives - maybe millions of lives - in the future."

How did this happen? How did we get to the point where we allowed an engineered virus to be released onto an unsuspecting population - then in the face of imminent death - we are being told that our job is to die.

Don't allow this fate to happen to your family. The triage experience will not be just about the color of your skin. You may be denied treatment just because someone doesn't like you or in your haste to get treatment for your loved one, you may become momentarily rude.

Any little thing can mean life or death for someone you love.

Protect your family today before it is too late.