Advice on Vaccine Shortage Is Lacking, Local Officials Say
(continuing incompetence from the Bush admin.)
By GARDINER HARRIS
nytimes.com
WASHINGTON, Oct. 21 - Local and state health officials are complaining that their federal counterparts have given them almost no information to deal with the shortage of flu vaccines, and many say that assurances that adequate supplies will eventually become available are hard to believe.
"We don't know where, when or how many flu vaccines have come into our areas or whether it's on the way," Mary Selecky, secretary of health for Washington State, said Thursday.
Ron Osterholm, director of the health department in Cerro Gordo County, Iowa, said his county had 14,200 people who qualified under the disease control agency's strict guidelines for flu vaccines. So far, the county has received 3,816 doses of vaccines. Mr. Osterholm said he doubted that his county would receive anything close to the number of doses needed to meet demand.
Mr. Osterholm complained that federal officials kept insisting that people should calm down and contact their local health departments for information. "But we've got no information to give them. Zero. Zip," Mr. Osterholm said.
And in Snohomish County, Wash., the volume of calls to health officials was so heavy for almost two days that they were unable to use the telephone lines at all, said Dr. Ward Hinds, health officer for the district. Dr. Hinds said his county had about 90,000 people at high risk for flu. The county has so far received about 10,000 doses of vaccine, he said.
But Tommy G. Thompson, the secretary of health and human services, said at a press conference Thursday that the country had "healthy supplies" of vaccines and anti-flu drugs to handle even a difficult flu season. He said 61 million doses would be available for the estimated 90 million Americans at high risk for flu. Other federal officials said that next week they would outline where future flu vaccine supplies were headed.
Mr. Thompson said the Bush administration had drastically increased spending on the flu. "We are prepared," he said.
Three years ago, Wyeth was making more than 20 million doses of flu vaccines annually. The company decided in 2002 to end its flu vaccine program. Two years earlier, King Pharmaceuticals ended its program. The departures left the country reliant on Aventis Pasteur and Chiron to provide more than 100 million doses annually.
When British and American health authorities quarantined Chiron's entire flu vaccine stock on Oct. 5, Aventis Pasteur became the nation's sole provider. Aventis has said it expects to make 58 million doses of flu vaccine for the United States this year.
Many public health experts agree that relying on just two companies to supply all of the nation's flu vaccine needs was a mistake, since any glitch would have dire effects. Dr. Walter Orenstein, who until earlier this year was the director of the national immunization program at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said the government should have used incentives to coax Wyeth and King to keep making the vaccines.
"Clearly, these were huge opportunities that were missed," Dr. Orenstein said.
A spokesman for King Pharmaceuticals did not return phone calls. A spokesman for Wyeth agreed with Dr. Orenstein.
"They didn't even approach us," said Doug Petkus, a Wyeth spokesman. "We might have considered their offer if such an offer was made."
Bill Pierce, a spokesman for Health and Human Services, said, "We're resisting the temptation to blame anybody, and we hope others do, too."
Federal health officials have insisted in recent days that the flu shortage is not a crisis, and that the elderly should stop standing in lines and should wait for supplies to arrive at their doctors' offices. Mr. Thompson said Thursday that MedImmune, the maker of a nasal flu vaccine for healthy people ages 5 to 49, would make three million doses of its vaccine this year, one million more than originally expected.
Dr. Mitchell Cohen, director of the Coordinating Center for Infectious Diseases at the C.D.C., said the agency and Aventis would release a distribution plan next week for the remaining 24 million doses that Aventis will make. But the plan may not be as detailed as some local officials would like because much of that information is proprietary to Aventis, Dr. Cohen said.
Len Lavenda, an Aventis spokesman, said the process was enormously complicated.
"We're talking about tens of millions of doses of vaccine going to tens of thousands of providers over a few week period," Mr. Lavenda said.
Meanwhile, so many Americans have gone to Canada to find flu vaccines that health officials in Vancouver are planning a clinic specifically for American citizens on Oct. 30. Any American with an appointment will be given a flu shot, provided he pays the $40 charge, said Vivianna Zanocco, a spokeswoman for the Vancouver Coastal Health Authority.
Colin Campbell contributed reporting from Toronto for this article. |
