Citing In-Custody Deaths, Medical Researchers Urge Mandatory Flu Shots for Kids In CBP Facilities
February 11th 2020
Navy Petty Officer 3rd Class Brett Friebel prepares a flu shot for a patient at Naval Branch Health Clinic Mayport’s immunizations clinic. (U.S. Navy photo by Jacob Sippel)
By Gabe Ortiz
Infectious disease experts from the University of Maryland School of Medicine and Division of Infectious Diseases and Geographic Medicine at Stanford University are calling on the Trump administration to implement policy mandating lifesaving flu shots for kids in Customs and Border Protection custody, citing the unprecedented deaths of children in federal immigration custody and warning that “Detention centers have become tinderboxes for infectious-disease outbreaks.”
The researchers in the New England Journal of Medicine say “The logistics of vaccine administration are relatively straightforward. Influenza vaccine is simple to administer and carries a low risk of adverse effects. In the event that a detainee has previously been immunized, there is no drawback to receiving multiple vaccinations.” No drawback to a policy that can save lives, yet the Trump administration has despicably ignored this medical advice.
In December, medical humanitarian group Doctors for Camp Closure protested the administration’s lack of policy outside a detention facility in California, arriving with enough supplies to administer 100 shots to kids at no cost to the government. They went unused. Making this even more outrageous is that the administration’s refusal to administer shots is based on a lie: while an agency spokesperson claimed a vaccination program doesn’t make sense because kids aren’t held for longer than 72 hours, a report from the Homeland Security watchdog last year found that officials have violated law to jail kids for as long as ten days.
This violation was also noted by medical researchers in the New England Journal of Medicine, writing “CBP detention centers are supposed to be temporary holding facilities for migrants, but this policy is not being followed. Policy states that all CBP detainees should be transferred within 72 hours after apprehension, with unaccompanied minors being sent to the [Office of Refugee Resettlement], while other detainees may be sent to [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] facilities. Carlos Hernández Vásquez died of influenza on his sixth day in CBP custody—well after he should have been transferred according to the stated policy.”
The researchers criticize poor detention facility conditions that contribute to illness and death. “In the past year, thousands of detained migrants and asylum seekers have been quarantined because of influenza, mumps, and chickenpox outbreaks. Such incidents should not come as a surprise. Children and adults are being held in crowded conditions without adequate sanitation or medical care. Detainees are crammed into facilities that are sometimes stretched five times beyond their maximum capacity. Investigations suggest that most detainees lack facilities to wash their hands before eating or after using the toilet.” Yet in ICE facilities, for example, officials have sought to lower already-low standards.
Children need their shots, though the goal must always be to end the jailing of all kids, period. “Mandatory influenza immunization is just one step toward improving conditions for detainees,” the researchers say. “Children detained by the federal government face myriad challenges, in part owing to the actions of an administration that appears to be using their suffering and the subsequent publicity generated as a deterrent to additional migration. Forcibly separated from their parents and denied adequate sanitation and bedding within detention centers, they face an assault on their basic human rights. Implementing mandatory influenza immunization would be an important action against a preventable illness—one that, if recent events are any guide, will be a life-threatening issue in detention centers this influenza season.”
Posted with permission