By Matthew Schofield, Kansas City Star editorial board columnist

Missouri Congressman Roy Blunt has joined the GOP chorus chiding President Barack Obama about sending Swine Flu vaccine to Guantanamo detainees, when the vaccine is in such short supply.

Blunt has a point. But it's a public relations point, not a substanitive one.

At this point, there are about 250 detainees left in Gitmo. Toss another 250 vaccines shots into the national pool, when the shortages are in the millions, and it makes no difference at all.

Blunt's argument makes it sound as if the problem is in giving the vaccine to detainees. The real problem is in the slow nature of making a working vaccine. That's not a political argument, however. That's a medical argument.

But, even if Blunt was right, he's wrong here.

The fact is the United States is obliged to provide detainees with health care _ by the Geneva Conventions, by basic morality. In this case, many of them are suspected terrorists. But legally, we chose to identify them as prisoners of war, and that means a higher level of care is required.

Beyond that, a good number of those still detained are now only held because America can't find a safe place to set them free. Holding someone for up to eight years without ever coming up with a crime with which to charge them probably deserves an early Swine Flu shot.

Still, certainly, it doesn't look good. It doesn't sound good.

Blunt's words on the matter: "It's outrageous that in Missouri, expectant mothers, children and others vulnerable to the H1N1 virus do not have access to the vaccine, and our tax dollars are funding vaccines for accused terrorists detained at Gitmo.

"President Obama called this pandemic a 'national emergency,'but the federal government continues to fail at one of its most basic responsibilities. And now the Administration tells us 'no longer women and children first;' instead accused terrorists will be first in line for H1N1 vaccines."