As anyone with
young children knows, vaccines are a part of childhood, with typical
shots (for the vast majority who participate) at 2, 4 and 6 months,
12-18 months and again at 5 years. Despite whatever controversy your
own mishigas may bring to the table, this has been a public health
triumph like few others (I'm old enough to remember polio). However,
the whole system has been very shaky in recent years.
The shortage caught many Americans by
surprise, but it followed decades of warnings from health experts who
said the nation's system for vaccine supply and distribution was
growing increasingly fragile.
"We're in the middle of a crisis that could have been averted,'' said
Dr. Irwin Redlener, associate dean of the Mailman School of Public
Health at Columbia University and director of its national center for
disaster preparedness.
In particular, public health experts have long cautioned against the
country's dependence on a few vaccine makers, and yet this has become
standard practice. There are now only two major manufacturers for the
nation's supply of flu vaccine, and at least a half-dozen other
vaccines are made by single suppliers. Britain, by contrast, has spread
its order for flu vaccines among five suppliers, precisely to avoid the
kind of predicament America now faces.
In recent years there have been many significant disruptions of vaccine supplies. Between
November 2000 and May 2003, there were shortages of 8 of the 11
vaccines for childhood diseases in the United States, including those
for tetanus, diphtheria, whooping cough, measles, mumps and chicken
pox. There have been flu vaccine shortages or miscues for four
consecutive years.
The long lines, the shortages, etc. have been predicted for some time
and stand as an indictment against this Administration's public health
policy (more on that coming) as well as its ability to fight
bio-terror. The smallpox vaccination plan for first providers was, to be very charitable, only a modest success
as the government did not address safety questions nor show good cause
for the potentially risky vaccine (in a real emergency the benefit far
outweighs the risk but not for a theoretical scare, and many first
providers refused the vaccine).
The Times does a nice job of chronicling that this was not an overnight
issue. The government did a poor job on flu preparation and there will
be a political price to pay. Seniors, already riled about medicare
benefits, vote.
[Knight Ridder reports that there was no problem in England BECAUSE THEY KNEW ABOUT THIS IN AUGUST AND PLANNED FOR IT!!! So why didn't the U.S. know?]
"Armed with essentially the same information [as England had], however,
U.S. officials relied on Chiron's early assurances that only a small
portion of the flu vaccine from its Liverpool plant was contaminated."
"The British also could fall back on a half-dozen other suppliers that
had been pre-approved by British authorities. The United States had
only one other major supplier, Aventis Pasteur."
"Some health experts now suggest that if U.S. officials had relied less
on Chiron's early assurances and acted more swiftly, they could have at
least limited the damage caused by the loss of half the U.S. supply."
[NOTE: US spokesman Tony Jewell herein LIES about what notice US had...]
"Tony Jewell, a spokesman for the U.S. Health and Human Services
Department, said the federal government saw no reason to begin looking
for replacement supplies in August, when the British did.
"'We had no indication from the company or MHRA until October 5 that
the entire 48 million doses were in jeopardy,' he said. 'As soon as we
learned in October, we contacted Aventis Pasteur to purchase several
million more.'
"Chiron, based in California, first told U.S. and British officials
about contamination problems on Aug. 25, saying it planned to destroy 4
million doses of flu vaccine." ____
[What's going on here is US relied on the WORD of a private
company. It's kind of like their "faith-based" war policy--of not
having enough troops and having no plan. Now we have "faith-based"
medicine. Only it's not faith in Christ. It's faith in CORPORATIONS!]
____
How can we trust the Bush administration to
protect us from a biological terrorist attack when it can't even manage
to provide flu shots?