Figuring out how to ration ventilators if swine flu gets bad

Wall Street Journal Health Blog, September 24, 2009

If the H1N1 flue were to mutate to become much, much more deadly, the need for ventilators would far outstrip the supply. That could create very difficult dilemmas, including whether to take dying patients off of ventilators in order to free the machines up for patients who have a better chance of surviving. State and federal officials have been working out plans for just how to handle those sorts of situations.