Public school nurses give swine flu vaccine to kids without parents' OK, sends child to hospital

Ben Chapman and Rachel Monahan
NY Daily News
Monday, Nov 2nd, 2009

School nurses mistakenly gave the swine flu vaccine to two students who didn't sign up for it - including a Brooklyn girl with epilepsy who wound up in the hospital.

"I was outraged," Naomi Troy, 26, told the Daily News after her 6-year-old daughter, Nikiyah Torres-Pierre, had a possible allergic reaction to the shot.

Officials at Public School 335 in Crown Heights called an ambulance to take Nikiyah to SUNY Downstate Medical Center when she fell ill following the arm jab.

"My stomach was hurting, and I was itching," Nikiyah said after she was released from the hospital.

The snafu and a similar mixup at a Staten Island school came in the first days of the city's in-school H1N1 vaccination program.

Full article here

Another city student gets flu vaccine by mistake: Dept. of Ed. officials

Rachel Monahan and Kerry Wills
NY Daily News
Monday, Nov 2nd, 2009

Officials admitted on Friday that a third student was mistakenly given the swine flu vaccine - an error the school nurses union blamed on the city.

"Nurses are not getting the support they need," said Judith Arroyo, president of Local 436, District Council 37, adding that the union had warned of problems.

"We don't like it when we're right, because usually when we're right someone does get hurt somewhere along the way."

City officials countered that nurses have received "excellent support."

Full article here