With Few Suppliers of Flu Shots, Shortage Was Long in Making

NY Times ^ | October 17, 2004 | DENISE GRADY

[neverdem]

How to Find the Flu Vaccine Doses That Are Available

WaPo's frontpage story is coming shortly, if it's not already posted. It seems to me that they are two fairly different approaches to the story on the vaccine shortage.

[neverdem]

FReepmail me if you want on or off my health and science ping list.

[G.Mason]

Here is an article from August, 2003

[B.Bumbleberry]

Whenever there are shortages, look first to see what stupid government action is interfering with the free market. In this case: the legislation enacted by Congress that sets the government up as the sole purchaser of the vaccines so that they can get the cheapest price and immunize more people. That was the theory. The reality was that U.S. suppliers could no longer make a profit and got out of the business.

[Boundless]

Ignoring the gratuitous Bush-bashing, here's the core:

"The government did little to stop companies from quitting
the business, and in some cases may have created policies
that made matters worse."

This is the naked unmasked face of HillaryCare (and
KerryCare, for that matter). Unintended consequences are
almost the only kind that "progressive" programs ever get.

[Prime Choice]

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.

Looks like the NY Slimes is trying to pin this one on Bush, even though it was created by ambulance-chasers like John Edwards and exacerbated by Hillary Clinton's plan for socialized medicine.

Let's face it: if the companies could charge a fair market rate for the vaccine and didn't have to worry about frivolous lawsuits with huge penalties handed down by Liberal courts.

[CMailBag]

Too bad the article didn't mention Hill & Bill's Big Adventure.
Over-involvment by the government is the real reason.

[G.Mason]

Did you read the article posted in post #3? It's a short one. ;)

[lancer]

In recent decades, many drug companies in the United States abandoned the manufacture of vaccines,

I searched the article for the name "Clinton" in vain. So I guess nothing was done in the 90s about the "many drug companies" opting out because of lawyers from the John Edwards Shyster School of Law.

[Prime Choice]

Did you read the article posted in post #3? It's a short one. ;)

Never saw it before, but it's bookmarked now! : )

[dc-zoo]

This whole flu shot story is Bullcrap. Tommy Thompson said today on FNC that only about 30 million people bothered to get a flu shot last year and we have 55 to 60 million available.

[Bommer]

I keep seeing the year 2000 mentioned over and over again, which means that it took a few years before that in the late 90's to create the problem. Gee remind me who was President then?

[Prime Choice]

I searched the article for the name "Clinton" in vain. So I guess nothing was done in the 90s about the "many drug companies" opting out because of lawyers from the John Edwards Shyster School of Law.

Bingo. The NY Slimes consistently overlooks any incompetence, malfeasance and even treason by the Clintons. In their view, everything -- but everything -- is Bush's fault.

[No Longer Free State]

In recent decades, many drug companies in the United States abandoned the manufacture of vaccines, saying that they were expensive to make, underpriced and not profitable enough. Flu vaccine can be a particular gamble, because the demand for it varies from year to year and companies throw away what they do not sell because a new vaccine must be made each year to deal with changing strains of the virus. Some companies dropped out because of lawsuits, and others because they determined that it would not pay to retool aging vaccine plants to meet regulatory standards.

The government did little to stop companies from quitting the business, and in some cases may have created policies that made matters worse.

Now, which presidential ticket is most likely culpable for this set of circumstances?

And since when can the government (in a free society) stop anyone from leaving any business?

[John Jorsett]

"Over time the barriers to make vaccines and stay in this business have gone up, but the prices for old vaccines haven't gone up that much," said J. Leighton Read, the founder of Aviron, the company that developed the nasal spray flu vaccine.

Carefully avoided in this article is any mention that the Clinton administration set government up to dictate the price for vaccine. In their utopian quest to make sure everyone got vaccines, they used their power to lower the price to where manufacturers simply quit because they couldn't make a profit.

[ClaireSolt]

Even though the government ha already screwed this up, royally, it is an spportunity foir other agencies to pile on and make chiron's life really miserable. I say get these bozos out of medicine.

[laredo44]

"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.

I knew I's seen that name before. Seems the good doctor had a previous life advising Janet Reno to abduct Elian Gonzalez so he could be returned to Cuba. Check out Dr. Redlener here.

http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a38fc86115a35.htm

[Libertarian444]

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.

Wasn't this guy the architect of Hillary's socialized medicine scheme??

[B.Bumbleberry]

Thanks for the heads up. I was typing my reply at the same time you posted. I didn't remember that it went back as far as 1993. We've been lucky we haven't had shortages before this.

[ClaireSolt]

Even though the government ha already screwed this up, royally, it is an spportunity foir other agencies to pile on and make chiron's life really miserable. That is, except for the useless CDC. All they ever do is watch. I say get these bozos out of medicine.