Posted on 10/05/2004 3:47:11 PM PDT by trappedinmn
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Americans' supply of flu vaccine was cut in half Tuesday as Britain abruptly shut down a major supplier just as flu season is about to begin. Facing a record shortage, U.S. health officials scrambled to reserve remaining shots for the elderly and others at highest risk from influenza.
Healthy adults will be asked to delay or skip getting flu shots this year so doctors can give priority to more vulnerable patients, Dr. Gregory Poland of the Mayo Clinic said after an emergency meeting of the government's vaccine advisers, who unanimously endorsed the voluntary rationing.
"We will need the help of the public, the public health community and the medical community to make sure that the vaccine goes to those who truly need it most," said a statement from the Department of Health and Human Services.
The people most in need of flu vaccine are babies and toddlers ages 6-23 months; the elderly; anyone with chronic conditions such as heart or lung disease; and pregnant women.
Other countries likely will face shortages, too, said Dr. Klaus Stohr, the World Health Organization's influenza chief.
British regulators suspended the license of Chiron Corp., the world's second-leading flu vaccine supplier, for three months. They cited manufacturing problems at the factory in Liverpool, England, where Chiron makes its leading Fluvirin flu vaccine.
The sanction means more than a delay, Chiron officials said: They will ship no Fluvirin anywhere this year, including the 46 million to 48 million doses originally planned for the United States.
"This season is gone," said Chiron chief executive Howard Pien.
The rest of the nation's supply, roughly 54 million flu shots, is coming from Aventis Pasteur, the world's leading supplier.
Aventis already had said it didn't expect to be able to produce more until at least November, when existing orders are filled. But the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has now asked Aventis to try to redistribute its shipments so high-risk patients get their shots first, CDC chief Julie Gerberding said.
"We'll be working on this fast and furiously," she told lawmakers before racing out of a House hearing to deal with Tuesday's surprise announcement.
High-risk patients depend on flu shots because the injections are made of killed influenza virus. For other people, there is another option: About 1 million doses of an inhaled flu vaccine, MedImmune Inc.'s FluMist, will be available for healthy 5- to 49-year-olds. It's made from live but weakened influenza virus.
Also under consideration: Whether Aventis' vaccine could be diluted to get two doses out of each original shot. Dr. Anthony Fauci, infectious disease chief for the National Institutes of Health, said a small study a few years ago suggested doing so would provide enough protection.
But more research on this year's flu vaccine would be needed. Dr. William Egan of the Food and Drug Administration said it was too early to know if the agency would allow such a move.
Chiron's shipments already had been delayed by a contamination problem discovered in August. The company has insisted only 4 million doses were tainted, although it refuses to identify the contaminant.
Less than two weeks ago, top U.S. health officials assured the public that close FDA monitoring of the rest of the supply showed it was fine and there would be no shortage.
British officials didn't explain why they disagreed.
Flu shot campaigns usually start in October, a month before the flu season typically begins in the United States. In an average year, flu kills 36,000 people and hospitalizes another 114,000, mostly the elderly.
Trading in Chiron's stock on the Nasdaq Stock Market was temporarily halted Tuesday morning. Share price dropped $7.69 a share, or 17 percent, to $37.73 after trading resumed.
GREAT POINT! Thanks to trial lawyers like Edwards!!!!
I will get my flu shot ASAP!
Hmm, I'd really like to know exactly what those "manufacturing problems" were. I question the timing.
Something else, they don't know what flu strain it will be the next year, yet they always pump out the shots and their PR folks are out there shouting from the roof tops if you don't pay for a shot you're going to die. Odd, I've never fallen for that bunk and am still here.... knock on wood.
Outsourcing.... Now if this were a real war, we would be lucky to find a reliable supply of bandaids.
Socialized medicine - its good for you!
interesting.
(anyone know the correct spelling of pinz'n'needles? I can't seem to get it quite right)
Who is responsible for putting this country in a position where this COULD happen? Somebody should be taking it in the shorts for this!!!
After this came down today, it was elbows and a$$holes up here in Big Sky. Don't know what will happen, but I feel like Eisenhower right before D-Day, who just had half of his divisions yanked. How the heck am I going to deal with 75,000 people who need flu vaccine but can't get it? OMG.
There was a little rain today and just the slightest suspicion in the wind -- wind! -- this evening that somewhere in the world it is "Fall" so I can't complain.
(It's been blistering down here the past week ... )
It's good to see you ... I wondered what you might have to say about all this. I've only had flu shots twice. One of the attorney's doctor hubbies had his people come give them to us for free. I'd refused the first year but one of the Mother Hen secretary sorts who inevitably look after me whenever I land in the coop made me do it the next two.
Do you think it's really a must? I'm hardly ever sick as it is and (the three days of feverish dreams upon my return from Russia aside =) the one year I did get fluish was a year I'd had a shot.
So ... I'm not a big believer in the flu shot, Doc.
(Bet you wish you had more like me to make your life easier. =)
And I had no idea we relied so heavily on England or had such a small circle of suppliers. Did you know that? How come America doesn't make its own vaccines?
I always figured flu vaccines would work like bee pollen ... I get it local or I don't bother. Why wouldn't it be the same for shots?
" How come America doesn't make its own vaccines? "
A step back to last year, a bit of historical perspective from NewsMax:
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2003/12/13/140235.shtml
- - - - - -
Saturday, Dec. 13, 2003 1:26 p.m. EST
Hillary's Flu Vaccine Crisis
Newspapers are awash this week with headlines warning that the U.S. is running out of flu vaccine just as the crisis reaches near-epidemic levels, with 11 children dead so far.
But as top radio talker Rush Limbaugh noted this week, the press isn't explaining how the most sophisticated health care system in the world was caught short by the flu crisis.
Perhaps reporters ought to ask New York Sen. Hillary Clinton, since one of the few health care reforms she managed to inflict on the nation during her co-presidency has now backfired by driving most of America's flu vaccine producers out of business.
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."
Last summer the Journal noted that the problem goes back to 1993, when Mrs. Clinton's "Vaccines for Children Program" was first implemented.
Hillary's vaccine crusade was being pushed by her Children's Defense Fund mentor Marian Wright Edelman - even though U.S. child vaccination rates at the time were considered relatively high by medical experts.
But that didn't stop Sen. Clinton and her "reformers." She pressured Congress to back the disastrous plan in a bid to make vaccines more available to poor, uninsured and underinsured children. In the process she turned the government into the major purchaser and distributor of vaccines.
Oops! Unfortunately for the familles of the 11 children killed by the disease so far, things didn't quite work out the way Hillary had planned.
As noted by the Kansas City Star this week, the decision to force vaccine makers to discount their price resulted in "declining financial incentives to develop and produce vaccines."
What's more, the vaccination rate "barely budged" after the Hillary-Edelman brainchild was implemented.
Hillary's "reform" did, however, manage to leave the nation thoroughly unprepared to handle the current flu crisis.
From: http://www.ncpa.org/iss/hea/2003/pd081803e.html
Hillary's Vaccine Shortage
Daily Policy Digest
Health Issues / Moving Toward Universal Coverage
Monday, August 18, 2003
Everyone knows America's vaccine industry is in serious trouble, with an ever dwindling number of producers and recent severe vaccine shortages. What everyone also should know is that the National Academy of Science's Institute of Medicine has now pinned much of the blame on the government vaccine-buying program promoted by former First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, according to the Wall Street Journal.
The panel of doctors and economists issuing a report on vaccines last week identified as a fundamental cause of the problem the fact that the government purchases 55 percent of the childhood vaccine market at forced discount prices. The result has been "declining financial incentives to develop and produce vaccines."
The root of this government role goes back to August 1993, when Congress passed Clinton's Vaccines for Children program. The plan, promoted by the Children's Defense Fund, was to use federal power to ensure universal immunization. So the government agreed to purchase a third of the national vaccine supply (the President and Mrs. Clinton had pushed for 100 percent) at a forced discount of half price, then distribute it to doctors to deliver to the poor and the un- and under-insured. As a result:
- Where 30 years ago, 25 companies produced vaccines for the U.S. market., today only five remain, and there is only one producer for a number of critical shots.
- Recent years have brought shortages of numerous vaccines, including those for whooping cough, diphtheria and chicken pox.
The Institute panel in effect said that one of Senator Clinton's pet projects is a bust. As Congress considers Medicare legislation that could do similar harm to prescription drug makers, the vaccine tale is a timely alarm, says the Journal.
Source: Editorial, "Hillary's Vaccine Shortage," Wall Street Journal, August 15, 2003; based on Committee on the Evaluation of Vaccine Purchase Financing in the United States, "Financing Vaccines in the 21st Century: Assuring Access and Availability," Institute of Medicine of the National Academies, August 4, 2003.
Jim! How's tricks?
Thanks very much for the articles and links.
I know the Bloodhounds will agree with me that the Clintons certainly are a health-conscious couple.
Trust all is well.
- Where 30 years ago, 25 companies produced vaccines for the U.S. market., today only five remain, and there is only one producer for a number of critical shots.- Recent years have brought shortages of numerous vaccines, including those for whooping cough, diphtheria and chicken pox.
I think this all may be part of the "moral imperative" to undo the damage done by reducing infant mortality, eradicating disease and and prolonging human life. To wit:
Death tolls have been reduced in every country to negligible rates from epidemics and diseases such as malaria, measles, smallpox, cholera, polio and tuberculosis; major advances have been made against heart disease and cancer, artificial organs can now prolong life.Since we accept these intrusions into nature's control of population as morally justified, are we not unwise to consider birth control with equal moral justificiation?
If we continue to support government activities to reduce disease and improve health in order to prolong life under the auspices of what is good for society, then should we not consider birth control as a government activity for similar reasons?
In the Task Force report on "Federal Government Family Planning Program" it was recommended that Congress increase appropriations for contraceptive research in the amount of $380,000,000.00 over the next five years.
That $380,000,000 is in 1970 dollars, btw.
I think this all may be part of the "moral imperative" to undo the damage done by (a) reducing infant mortality, (b) eradicating disease and (c) prolonging human life.Whew - this has NWO conspiracy theory via a 'clandestinely implemented' population control plan -
- I know I'm reading you right on that point, after having persued the thread linking GHWB to same.
I don't, however, think that is anyway near being true, or ever becoming true, or ever having an ounce of a chance of coming to fruition.
Today, via vastly improved technology over that utilized in the 1970's, we are able to be *far* more efficient; whether the field is farming, auto-manufacturing or medicine, we are far more productive per man than that which existed in 1970.
The entire premise, therefore, of that 'house hearing' in 1970 is moot ...
Whew - this has NWO conspiracy theory via a 'clandestinely implemented' population control plan -
to:
Whew - this has NWO conspiracy theory via a 'clandestinely implemented' population control plan written all over it -
=== I don't, however, think that is anyway near being true, or ever becoming true, or ever having an ounce of a chance of coming to fruition.
Yeah, well ... I figure there are over 40 million dead infants who'd say otherwise. The fact we've got to draft in an official underclass from down south like we're decaying Rome or something also gives me pause.
As for "efficiency" ... I'm sure one reason the "pricing structures" which so concerned the GOP back in 1970 have stayed relatively the same is because our Efficiency is such now that the big money's made selling parts for scrap out the backdoor of abortuaries. PBA's never going to be illegal primarily for the fact it affords us prime specimens of Longpig for the lab.
Just as the GOP-divined "right" to predetermine the sex and Genetic Quality, etc. of one's children afford Interested Parties plenty of prime Excess Manufacture embryos from which to confect all manner of "humanitarian" assists for the official Persons of the planet.
I guess I'm rather simpleminded and still hearken to the "self-evident" truths of our Declaration that all men are created equal.
As for "connecting" it to H. Bush ... not my call. I know I get a lot of guff on the forum for "hating" the Bush family. I can't help the fact that anyone like me who seeks to understand how it came to be our government would usurp the will of the Creator and seek to control human reproduction butts heads repeatedly with the Bush family and their friends among the eugenicists and pro-aborts of this land.
I really couldn't care less about the surnames of the Players ... what concerns me is the dehumanization. It's not only the killing, _Jim, it's the effect the killing and the rationalizations and the accepting of mindbending Orwellian terms like "Living Will" have not only on a people at large but on individual souls lost or deformed for eternity.
The only things I can say for sure is "moot" at present are the NIH's guidelines against which I was harping in earnest back in January of 2000. There's no longer any need for special approval of their "human experimentation" projects because Bush's decision on ESCR opened a whole new window of Non-Personhood (that crypto plan's memorialized in the Congressional Register, btw) and the use of "human" is no longer necessary for purposes of obtaining consent or inviting special scrutiny.
Like guys who jack off to porn at fertility clinics or college women interested in donating their eggs for a small profit really care to give "parental consent."
You see ... all this changes a people, person by person.
Anyway ... I really do appreciate the info. Nice to know how the noose gets tightened on the "Living" they manage like so much livestock despite all the rhetoric about our "rights" to live like animals and die with all the dignity of a dog at the pound when we please.
Trust all is well with you and yours.
Yeah, well ... I figure there are over 40 million dead infants who'd say otherwise.Cold-war "old-school" thinking to be sure; the move, lately (what, the last fifeteen years or so?) has been to *more* freedom and 'openness' in the world and in regard to information (at least among those wishing to partake of internet-based discussion and debate) rather than the old, closed-shop, buttoned-up information doling out 'press' (and 'propagandists') of days gone by -
- in part, in LARGE part, I think, due to concerted efforts by FR and the wide array of peoples with their varied and diverse talents and skills and drive to participate and set their own course for the future -
- shoot! We had SeeBS on the ropes for what - two or three weeks there! And the 'after taste' still lingers in the 'media' for what was accomplished!
Like I said, I don't see the 'clock' being turned back to where it was, to what is was, back in the seventies even.
Why - look at the mindset we've overcome in the last two centuries - there is *no* way we would accept slavery again, a 'concept' that was, at one time, widely accepted as 'the norm' and was as old as mankind itself!
As Rush has said, it's going to take the 'changing of hearts' to ban abortion - I can see it happening, too.
Just like with slavery ...
Better late than never BUMP!!!
Bookmark.
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