Group Urges CDC to Reduce the Number of Flu Deaths

WASHINGTON--With this being one of the worst flu seasons in recent memory the Centers for Disease Control has recommended expanding vaccinations for children.

Children up to 18 years of age would get flu shots to ward off the disease.

Gary Stein says the expansion is a good thing. He lost his four-year-old daughter to the flu six years ago. Now he works with Families Fighting Flu, a non-profit, volunteer-based organization, made up families who have experienced the death of a child due to the flu.

More than 300 children have died of the virus during the past four flu seasons.

Members of Families Fighting Flu are urging the CDC to reduce the number of childhood illnesses by changing vaccination recommendations.

"She was a perfectly healthy girl and she caught the same bug that was going around her school like everybody else did," Stein says. "But she had the misfortune of having it kill her."

In 2006, the CDC recommended vaccinations expand to include only children up to 59 months old.

"Pediatricians follow it they provide that advice to their patients and we are hooping that more families will take that advice and get it done," he says.

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