Who should get swine flu shots if there were only 500,000 of them?

It is hard to pick who can get vaccinated and who can't. It is as much as an ethical issue as it is a scientific and logistical issue. The CDC recommends that the five groups of people who get vaccinated are, "pregnant women, people who live or care for children younger than 6 months of age, health care and emergency medical services personnel, persons between the ages of 6 months through 24 years of age, and people from ages 25 through 64 years who are at higher risk for novel H1N1 because of chronic health disorders or compromised immune systems, " ("CDC," 2009). Those groups make up many hundred times more than 500,000. I think that health care and emergency medical services personnel should be the first group of priority because they can then administer the proper drugs to those who have already caught swine flu. Of course only those who come in direct contact with the sick on a daily basis should be able to get the vaccine and then only those who spend the most time with patients and so on until there is only a group of 500,000 left. If there were more vaccines available ideally all the target groups would be vaccinated as well as those in an area where swine flu is spreading rapidly.

(2009, July). CDC newsroom press release July 29, 2009. Retrieved from http://www.cdc.gov/media/pressrel/2009/r090729b.htm