Kids Offered Pizza For Taking Swine Flu Shot

ABC 7 News
Dec. 19, 2009

(WXYZ) – The Detroit Health Department is fighting swine flu with pepperoni. When kids return to school after the holiday break, each class has the opportunity to get a free pizza party – if they sign up for the shots.

It’s a simple fact–kids don’t like vaccinations – even when they can get them in a spray.

Their parents, like Leslie Ethridge however, are often eager to get their kids protected, “Your children get 20 some odd inoculations, this is just another one, so if it’s available you should get the shot.”

But when Detroit schools – both public and private– sent home permission slips for students to get H1N1 vaccine at school, the return rate was only about ten percent.

Dr. Walter Davis, Detroit Pandemic Flu Coordinator, told us, “talking to principals and some parents we find that a lot of them are never receiving consent forms.”

The Detroit Health Department has already been working especially hard to get the vaccine into the community.

Full story here.