Flu Shot Fiasco

[NATO AIR]

here is newsweek's take on the events leading up to and after the flu shot fiasco worried the nation

The Flu Shot Fiasco
The shortage has put millions into a panic. Spotty supply is the immediate problem. Caring for our country's public health is the bigger issue

By Geoffrey Cowley
Newsweek
Nov. 1 issue - If you needed a flu shot last week, southern California was not the place to find it. Three weeks into the great vaccine debacle of 2004, L.A.'s Cedars-Sinai Hospital was limping along on 10 percent of its usual supply. There was no flu vaccine at San Diego's Camp Pendleton Marine Corps base, and no word from the Pentagon on when or whether the facility's 60,000 personnel might finally get their shots. Across the border in Tijuana, meanwhile, Dr. Enrique Chacon was cheerfully administering freshly bottled Aventis Pasteur flu vaccine. There are no waiting lists at his well-scrubbed Grupo Pediatrico children's clinic, no restrictions on who can get a shot. And though many of Chacon's patients are locals, he stands ever ready to help a northerner in need. "Viruses cross borders without a visa," he says. "If there is influenza on one side, there will be influenza on the other. We need to vaccinate everyone."

If only we could. As recently as three weeks ago, health experts assumed that 100 million Americans would have access to flu shots this fall. That was before British authorities shut down a Liverpool production plant operated by the U.S. company Chiron. Overnight, the U.S. vaccine supply shrank by nearly half, prompting restrictions on access, a surge in demand and a mounting sense of panic among doctors, patients and parents.

Scalpers are now peddling scarce vaccine lots at 10 times the usual price. Hospitals are turning away old folks and cancer patients who could die from lack of a flu shot. And with the presidential campaign in its final weeks, both candidates are trying to sway voters on the issue. By President George W. Bush's account, the vaccine crisis is a reminder of the need for liability reform, but no cause for alarm. "We have healthy supplies of antiviral medicines and vaccines to help keep you safe from the flu and its complications," Health Secretary Tommy Thompson said in a press briefing last week. Sen. John Kerry chides the president for failing to prevent the fiasco—and prays that the administration's blithe reassurances will backfire. "People are red-in-the-face mad about this," his spokesman David Wade says. "When Bush said in the last debate that he just wouldn't get a flu shot, that crystallized the impression that he's out of touch."

The truth is, neither candidate had a lot to say about influenza, or the vaccine supply, until the system collapsed this month. The flu virus is a wily and dangerous foe. It strikes as many as 56 million Americans each year, causing 200,000 hospitalizations and 36,000 deaths. Routine vaccination can almost always prevent the condition. But profit-conscious drug companies have fled the business in droves in recent years, leaving the health system ever more vulnerable to shortages and interruptions in supply. Health experts have spent two decades warning that our system for producing vaccines is dangerously fragile and suggesting ways to make it more secure. Politics aside, they agree that the current crisis is not a fluke but a predictable consequence of inaction. "We've been on precarious ground for decades now," says Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. "The accident that was waiting to happen just happened."

With luck, the medical fallout could still be minimal this year. The anticipated strain of flu virus is a close variant of last year's, meaning that previously exposed people should have at least partial immunity. And though Chiron's withdrawal leaves only one major manufacturer, Aventis Pasteur, to pick up the slack, there should still be 61 million doses on the U.S. market this winter—58 million vials of injectable vaccine from Aventis, plus 3 million doses of MedImmune's FluMist nasal vaccine. That's considerably less than the 85 million doses administered last year, but federal health officials have developed a voluntary triage system to boost the effect of the limited supply. Instead of promoting vaccination for everyone older than 6 months, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are asking healthy people between 2 and 64 to skip their shots this year so that health workers can direct all the available vaccine to old folks, young children, pregnant women and people with chronic illnesses. CDC is also trying to work with Aventis to ship vaccine to health departments, VA hospitals and clinics serving high-risk patients

get the rest @ (its a three page story)
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6315714/site/newsweek/

 

[Mr. P]

Another GREAT reason to keep Government out of health care!

As reported by the Wall Street Journal this week, "The reason for today's shortage - as well as seven previous preventive vaccine shortages since 2000 - is that there are just five vaccine makers.

"This lack of suppliers is partly thanks to Hillary Clinton, who as first lady turned government into the majority buyer of vaccines and pushed prices so low as to make business unsustainable."

http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2003/12/13/140235.shtml

 

[NATO AIR]

another reason i'll definitely be voting GOP in 2008 if she's "coronated" the democratic nominee

 

[dmp]

who gives a rat's ass? Really? It's as if this country did not exist prior to the Flu Shot.

(shrug).

Play when you are hurt.

Work when you are tired.

 

[UsaPride]

Play when you are hurt.

Work when you are tired.

And rub some dirt on it.
Sorry, I heard this alot, LOL!

 

[Joz]

Every year we seem to have a vaccine shortage. These companies can't figure out that if they didn't have enough LAST year, they just might not have made enough? I don't believe it. Not one of these companies will miss a buck, if there's one to be made.

Just like the 'energy shortage'. You never hear about in the summertime when businesses have their air-conditioners set so low that you need a ski-suit just to sit in their office. But as the temeratures drop.....and the heat needs to be turned on.....they begin the panic. People (old) can survive without air-conditioning, did it for years, but you can't survive the cold without heat.

 

[dmp]

Every year we seem to have a vaccine shortage. These companies can't figure out that if they didn't have enough LAST year, they just might not have made enough? I don't believe it. Not one of these companies will miss a buck, if there's one to be made.

Democrat policies regulating price of the vaccine come into play - companies will produce items for profit. If we limit the price too much, the 'trouble' outweighs the 'profit'

Just like the 'energy shortage'. You never hear about in the summertime when businesses have their air-conditioners set so low that you need a ski-suit just to sit in their office. But as the temeratures drop.....and the heat needs to be turned on.....they begin the panic. People (old) can survive without air-conditioning, did it for years, but you can't survive the cold without heat.

The problem? Greed. Pure and simple. Last spring, of 2003, water companies started preaching "SEATTLE NEEDS TO CONSERVE!!" The city spent thousands of dollars on campaigns to get us to conserve water, based on the fears of the water companies.

Seattle reduced it's water consumption by some 20? percent.

Guess what? The Water companies petitioned the city, and were approved to raise water rates. Why? Because we didn't consume enough water, their profits were down.

Makes me spitting, near violently angry.

 

[NATO AIR]

in my high school years/college year, i volunteered at 2 aids (Duke's Childrens Hospice was one of them) hospices. getting e-mails from some of the nurses there recently has caused my nerves to be on edge. hardly anyone has been able to get the flu vaccine yet. a lot of these kids/very sick adults have low T-Cell levels. one minor bout with the flu will likely kill them.

two groups are to blame.

the companies for not making enough vaccine because its a once a year dose that they can't make much profit off of.

the government and its leaders in the past who set up an atrocious system that has allowed this to happen.

 

[Joz]

For a while, I was reading my own meters & calling the numbers into the company. As long as they can come & read them occassionally to make the necessary adjustments, they allow that.

One month, I called in & the gentleman that I was talking to told me thet the numbers for the water meter were not right; that they were higher than usual. I told him I knew how to read numbers & that we must have been extra dirty that month.

BUT, the family has fluctuated, from 4 to 3 to 2 to 3 to 1 to 2.........The utility bill does NOT reflect this except by a few dollars. You cannot tell me a family of 2 consumes the same amount of energy as a family of 4. There's a special place in hell for Utility Companies.