Senate Majority Leader Defends Lawmakers’ Capitol Hill Flu Shots

NASHVILLE — Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist said Thursday that lawmakers on Capitol Hill who received flu shots in his office were either following federal guidelines or their own doctors’ recommendations.

Frist was responding to criticism that his office was used as a clinic to administer shots to lawmakers two days after the government asked healthy adults to forgo the vaccinations because of a nationwide shortage.

“They keep mentioning my name as if I had done something exceptional, when I hadn’t,” Frist said after casting his ballot during early voting in Tennessee.

He claimed the campaign of Sen. John F. Kerry was blowing the issue out of proportion for “political gain” and suggested trial lawyers, like Kerry running mate John Edwards, contributed to the shortage with suits against vaccination makers.

The Kerry campaign pointed out that Frist and other GOP luminaries were getting the shots while the Bush administration was telling the rest of the country to keep calm.