U.S. Will Donate Part of H1N1 Vaccine Supply to Foreign Nations Before Meeting This Nation’s Demand

CNSNEWS.COM ^ | Thursday, October 22, 2009 | Chris Neefus

[FreeKeys]

Sebelius Says U.S. Will Donate Part of H1N1 Vaccine Supply to Foreign Nations Before Meeting This Nation’s Demand
Thursday, October 22, 2009
By Chris Neefus
 
  

.......		Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) asked Health and Human Service  Secretary Kathleen Sebilius why the United States should  get vaccinations ahead of people in other countries, including  those in countries that are producing the vaccine for the  United States. (CNSNews.com/Penny Starr) When Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) had his turn to question  Sebelus, he raised the issue of whether the United States was  "entitled" to the vaccine more than other nations. "Why should  we be more entitled, the U.S. be more   entitled to that vaccine  than some other country in the world?" .....

(CNSNews.com) – Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius told CNSNews.com Wednesday that one in 10 doses of the swine-flu vaccine purchased by the U.S. will be donated to other nations before the U.S. demand for the vaccine is filled.

Sebelius also told a Senate committee that vaccine production is well behind demand.

“What we said is once we have 40 million doses (of the vaccine), the donation can start,” Sebelius told CNSNews.com. “There’s an agreement (of) 10 percent donation that 11 nations have made,” she said.

HHS has ordered about 250 million doses of the vaccine, so the donation would begin after the U.S. received just 16 percent of its original order.

Sebelius made the remarks at a Senate Homeland Security Committee hearing on the government's preparations for dealing with the H1N1 flu virus outbreak. Education Secretary Arne Duncan and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano also provided testimony at the hearing.

The nation’s top health bureaucrat said the government would still donate to foreign nations part of the stock of vaccine purchased by the U.S. government despite delays in getting the vaccine to American citizens, which she said puts the nation “at the point where demand is ahead of the yield.”

“We will do our best to ramp up the production and continue to push it out the door,” Sebelius said.  Sebelius responded: "Well, I think the balance is difficult. The president clearly has made it clear that his priority is safety and security of the  American people, and immediately he also adds that we're a global partner. So we have joined now with 11 nations in terms of 10 percent of the
vaccine will be made available to developing countries."

Sebelius said that Congress had “wisely” included funds in the last supplemental appropriations bill to allow HHS to place large orders of the vaccine well in advance.

“The orders are filled in priority terms, so we are really at the front of the line with some of these (manufacturers) in terms of getting the vaccine as it is produced,” she added.

“The orders are filled in priority terms, so we are really at the front of the line with some of these (manufacturers) in terms of getting the vaccine as it is produced,” she added.

When speaking with CNSNews.com after the hearing, Sebelius also emphasized the needs of developing countries. 

		.....
.....		Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen  Sebelius (Photo by Penny Starr/CNSNews.com)  .....

Asked whether Americans should be prioritized over foreigners with the stockpile of H1N1 vaccine that HHS has ordered using taxpayer funds, Sebelius said: “Well, I think that we are trying to do both things simultaneously--participating is part of our partnership with 11 other countries in terms of donating to developing countries.”

“There’s an agreement (on) 10 percent donation that 11 nations have made, at the same time trying to get the vaccine out to Americans," said Sebelius. "What we said is once we have 40 million doses, the donation can start.”

Referring to the production delay for the vaccine, Sebelius told CNSNews.com: “We had hoped that that would be a little earlier, but we are working with these 11 nations through the World Health Organization (WHO) to help get the vaccines to countries particularly who can't purchase them. I mean, that’s really the issue is the countries who don’t have the wherewithal to purchase vaccines. We need to make available some of the vaccine that is available to the developed nations.”

When CNSNews.com tried to clarify whether the donation would happen once the delay in production was over and all of the U.S. demand had been met, Sebelius said that was not the case.

“Well, no," she said. "Forty million doses was the initial benchmark and so once that is in this country, then 10 percent of the (doses are donated), and we’ll make up the rest. That’s what the other nations are doing too--England, New Zealand, and Australia and Germany and Spain are all participating in this kind of global effort.”

HHS has ordered about 250 million doses of swine flu vaccine, both in injection and nasal mist forms, which they expect to administer through the spring. The U.S. population is about 307 million.

[1000 silverlings]

they can have mine

[bergmeid]

I was diagnosed with asthma three days ago. I was told to get a shot if I can find one.

Thanks a whole lot for giving mine away to Lord knows who.

[PghBaldy]

She loooks like Cruella DeVille.

[PghBaldy]

Not the first time that the MSM is asleep while Obama does things people wouldn’t like.

[wolfcreek]

This is what happen to you when you LIE too much.

[divine_moment_of_facts]

Is she a smoker, too? Just asking because of the way she is holding that sharpie pen.

[divine_moment_of_facts]

From what I heard.. she had a cancerous mole removed above her eyebrow.. The proceedure made her eye swell up.

[SteamShovel]

Proof this so-called “national crisis” is a totally fabricated political tool and nothing more.

Exactly.....

.....Stoke up a crisis

.....Spend how much on the vaccine?

.....Declare a national emergency

.....Then give away some of the vaccine?

IF IF IF this were a real emergency, we should not be giving away 10% of the vaccine. That is the same as dooming 10% of the population that would have received it.

This is just more proof to me that Obama and his sorry excuse for an administration have cooked up this "crisis" for power. This is not to say the flu is not real or a threat to vulnerable people. But to say this is something that rises to the level of a crisis is absurd.

[elkfersupper]

It’a all a hoax anyway, so who cares?

[massmike]

bookmark

[freedomfiter2]

exactly

[Soothesayer9]

Left 4 Dead 2 screenshot?

[concerned about politics]

one in 10 doses of the swine-flu vaccine purchased by the U.S. will be donated to other nations before the U.S. demand for the vaccine is filled.

President Barack Obama has declared swine flu a "national emergency," the White House said Saturday, as the United States reels from millions of cases of infection and over 1,000 deaths.

This is what they mean by Universal Health care. Still interested, America?

[concerned about politics]

This is an unusual situation in that some people want no part of this vaccine, and others are literally desperate to receive it for themselves and their families ASAP.

There was a huge line in LA this morning, but there aren't enough doses available for all those who showed up. They're "rationing." They're choosing who will get it and who won't.
This is a classic example of what government Death Care will be like.

[concerned about politics]

Obama is The Chaos President. He's been doing this kind of crap since the day he took the oath. Everything about this flake seems to be born under the banner of random chaos. He constantly says one thing and does another.

ALINSKI:

"They're the first to live in a total mass-media-oriented world, and every night when they turn on the TV and the news comes on, they see the almost unbelievable hypocrisy and deceit and even outright idiocy of our national leaders and the corruption and disintegration of all our institutions, from the police and courts to the White House itself. Their society appears to be crumbling and they see themselves as no more than small failures within the larger failure. All their old values seem to have deserted them, leaving them rudderless in a sea of social chaos. Believe me, this is good organizational material.

The despair is there; now it's up to us to go in and rub raw the sores of discontent, galvanize them for radical social change. We'll give them a way to participate in the democratic process, a way to exercise their rights as citizens and strike back at the establishment that oppresses them, instead of giving in to apathy. We'll start with specific issues -- taxes, jobs, consumer problems, pollution -- and from there move on to the larger issues: pollution in the Pentagon and the Congress and the board rooms of the megacorporations. Once you organize people, they'll keep advancing from issue to issue toward the ultimate objective: people power. We'll not only give them a cause, we'll make life goddamn exciting for them again -- life instead of existence. We'll turn them on."

[668 - Neighbor of the Beast]

I trust these people are sending a similar percentage of their salaries overseas. And why should they keep more than half? Why, indeed, should they keep 90% of the money they earn? Why should they be allowed to keep any at all? I’d bet there are families of starving cannibals somewhere who could live for a month on the corpse of just one of these elected elite SOBs.

[markomalley]

I think every bit of it should be donated.

Second that motion...

[PGalt]

Thanks for the post/ping. Good thread. Thanks to all posters. I will not be getting the vaccine and I’ve never had a flu shot. My wife gets them. She says the flu will kill me one day because when I do get it (about every 5-7 years), it is very bad (as bad as anything I have ever had) and a couple of times I thought I was in a battle for my own survival (never been hospitalized).

[mvpel]

Since neither my husband nor I plan to get the H1N1 vaccine (or the seasonal flu shot), they can have ours...

Even health care providers are facing shortages of the vaccine right now. I'd rather have my brother and sister, who are both nurses, and who are both facing the daily risk of getting sneezed all over, have your and your husbands' vaccine dose than a foreigner.

[nutmeg]

Even health care providers are facing shortages of the vaccine right now. I'd rather have my brother and sister, who are both nurses, and who are both facing the daily risk of getting sneezed all over, have your and your husbands' vaccine dose than a foreigner.

I agree with you there. I didn't realize US health care providers are now facing shortages of these vaccines...

I was just being sort of sarcastic. Let the "foreigners" take care of themselves.