Senate Health- Labor Committee Examines Vaccine Shortage

The United States is facing shortages of vaccines that protect against four diseases that "can be prevented by routine childhood immunization shots," the Hartford Courant reports. Diphtheria, tetanus, pertussisand pneumonia and pneumonia-related diseases vaccines are experiencing "prolonged shortages" for reasons ranging from "difficulty complying" with FDA manufacturing standards to "insufficient" vaccine stockpiles meant to "ease supply disruptions." In addition, supplies of flu vaccine have been delayed "for the second consecutive year" as one of the drug makers has halted production and another is facing production delays because of "difficulty in growing the influenza strain" needed to make the vaccine. During a Nov. 27 Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee hearing, Walter Orenstein, director of the CDC's National Immunization Program, said, "One of the most critical challenges (facing the nation) is addressing the fragility of the vaccine supply." He added that doing so "has been challenging." Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.) said that even more "serious production delays" could occur if "a plant was sabotaged or [a] company failed to meet federal standards." Ornstein, however, said NIP is taking a series of steps to "ease shortages," including reducing the number of doses given of a vaccine to one that can be "managed with limited supplies," ensuring an "equitable distribution of supplies" throughout the country and overseeing drug makers' "production and release" of vaccines. According to Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, the government should also offer vaccine producers "a long-term commitment to ensure they will make a profit." F.E. Thompson Jr., former president of the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials, said, "We may be attacked with anthrax again, or we may not. But none of us questions the need to protect our citizens against it. We will be assaulted, naturally, by flu, hepatitis A and B, pertussis and streptococcus pneumoniae, all preventable by immunization" (Macdonald, Hartford Courant, 11/29).