Is there a reason this article was excerpted?
Why not post the entire thing?
Will the author give permission to doing so?
Sorry I did not post the whole thing. Was on mobile. Here it is:
We have known about the H1N1 (Swine Flu), risk for many months now. We knew that last spring’s outbreak would turn into a more virulent strain by this fall. That is all basic science. Concerned for our citizens, the government recognized the need to produce substantial volumes of vaccine. We have spent more than $2.2B for H1N1 Swine flu. To date, only a minor amount of this vaccine has been delivered, but concern seems muted. Despite new vaccine manufacturing technologies, we persist in using outdated methods and to spend huge sums of money in a wasteful manner. Why?
Here is a bit of background....
Clinton (HRC) pushed the Vaccines for Children policy in 1993, which caused most manufactures to exit the industry
In early part of Bush administration R&D in vaccine research was dramatically increased
2004 season: a combination of fewer manufactures and accusations of Bush incompetence resulted in ~40M dose short fall vs. plan of 100M doses for season flu
Fear of Bird flu and other emerging pandemics led Democrats to accuse Bush administration of multiple failings. Budgets for pandemic research and preparedness were increased substantially (more than $4B over 2005-2007 time frame)
Additional $1.5B was authorized in Spring of 2009 to produce H1N1 vaccine. Total spend for H1N1 Vaccine of approximately $2.2B
By Fall of 2009, only 11.3M doses of a planned 250M doses have been delivered. HHS claims there have been minor “glitches”, DHS claims all is per plan
Critical study shows vaccine will arrive too late for impact on H1N1
1,000 3,900 people have died so far in US (if you recall 1,494 died in Katrina apparently because of Bush’s failing and global warming, which is also Bush’s fault)
Main Stream Media is mum on whole issue, Fox (non) News is not
My frustration comes from a few issues. The historic process of making vaccines in egg shells is arcane and subject to numerous production risks that can result in last minute issues like contamination (cause of 40M dose shortage in 2004). Liability clauses discourage drug manufactures from manufacturing vaccine, and Government is unwilling to wave terms. Companies like Novavax (www.novavax.com) have had a novel technique, using virus like particles to make large volumes of vaccine, for many years, but government continues to buy from companies using old egg technique. Per the time line below, Democrats have put huge amount of effort and money into realigning national efforts for pandemic response (and ridicule of the past administration for its failures) but seem to deliver worse results.
So, we are spending dramatically more money. We have all the best minds focused on the subject. Every resources of government is focused on success. Obama has every resource he has requested. We have been spending the last 4 years realigning efforts for pandemic. And, we are 210M doses short of plan for H1N1. When the vaccine does become available, the pandemic will likely have run its course killing more people than died in the (supposed) last government lead disaster (Katrina). Is this smart government?
Frankly, had government instead focused less than a $1 billion on new production techniques like those of innovative companies (Novavax, etc), we would have all the vaccine we would ever need. Where are the hearings? Where is the outrage? Where is our money? Is this how stimulus is being spent? Does anyone in Congress actually think about a problem, look at the fundamentals, and perhaps question why we are still building vaccine the way we did in 1940? Great innovation guys, where are our coffins?