Usually the members of Congress hardly seem to notice the city they work in, let alone its residents. Early this month, however, the country’s representatives had an opportunity to help their most immediate neighbors and, for once, they took it.
Ever since the pharmaceutical company Chiron announced that it would be unable to provide the nearly 46 million flu vaccines it had promised, the country has been scrambling to secure doses for the elderly and the very young. The Washington Metro Area is no exception.
Residents were angry when they learned that the physician at the Capitol had received 3,000 doses of the flu vaccine.
The average age of Congressional Representatives is 53.9 years, and Senators have a mean age of 59.5 years, according to a report by the Congressional Research Service. This number doesn’t include the hordes of young interns and staffers who work there.
And the Hill isn’t exactly teeming with high risk individuals.
Senate majority leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.), a heart surgeon, reasonably pointed out that Senators and Representatives would be wise to get vaccinated, lest they transmit the disease to all the people they shake hands with every day.
But the Washington Post reported on Oct. 20 that the Capitol’s medical office was giving shots to staffers without even asking whether they were high risk.
The negative publicity, combined with a letter from District Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton, quickly changed their minds.
Two days after the Post publicized this inequity, congressional leaders announced their decision to donate 3,000 doses of flu vaccine to the D.C. Department of Health.
It is heartening to see congressional leaders taking some responsibility for the city where they spend the majority of their year, although it should not have taken an article in the Washington Post for them to think of the people they pass on the street every day.
Perhaps the lawmakers’ sacrifice of flu vaccines will encourage more concern for the residents of the city that surrounds the Capitol building. Given past history, however, that result seems unlikely.
