Border Patrol Nixed Flu Shots For Detained Migrants

The Washington Post reports:

As influenza spread through migrant detention facilities last winter, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended that U.S. Customs and Border Protection vaccinate detained migrants against the virus, a push that CBP rejected, according to a newly released letter to Congress.

The CDC recommendation was revealed in a letter from the agency to Rep. Rosa L. DeLauro (D-Conn.), chair of the House Appropriations subcommittee that oversees funding for the Department of Health and Human Services, which includes CDC.

The agency’s director, Robert Redfield, issued the letter Nov. 7 in response to a series of questions DeLauro posed last month after the flu had taken a toll on migrants in U.S. custody during the past year. An 8-year-old Guatemalan boy died of the flu while being detained near El Paso in December, a month before CDC’s vaccination recommendation.