Oct. 17, 2004 - 21:44 MDT

THE WONDERING JEW

So !

Seems like a state of disorganized confusion reigns in our country and everybody is probably going to have to suffer the consequences, anyhow that is the way it looks to me.

Following is a short rundown on an article by Denise Grady of The New York Times in The Denver Post of today. In part:

Shortage of shots for flu called avoidable

Health experts have been warning for decades that the U.S. vaccine-supply system was vulnerable.

"Congress, the Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange commission began investigations into how the nation has been left, on the brink of flu season, with half the flu vaccine it needs."

"THe shortage caught many Americans by surprise, but it followed decades of warnings from health experts who said the nations system for vaccine supply and distribution was growing increasingly fragile."

"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 Univrsity and director of its national center for disaster preparedness."

"In particular, public health experts have long cautioned against the country's dependence on a few vaccine-makers, and yet this has become standard practice."

"There are now only two major manufacturers fpr the nation's supply of flu vaccine, and at least a half-dozen other vaccines are made by single suppliers. Britain, by contrast, has spread its order for flu vaccines among five suppliers, precisely to avoid the kind of predicament the United States faces."

In recent year there have been many significant disruptions of vaccine supplies."

Between November 2000 and May 2003, there were shortages of eight ot the 11 vaccines for childhood diseases in the United States, including those for tetanus, diphtheris, whooping cough, measles, mumps and chickenpox. There have been flu vaccine shortages or miscues for four consecutive years."

In recent decades, many drug companies in the United States have abandoned the manufacture of vaccines, saying they were expensive to make, underpriced and not sufficiently profitable."

"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 made matters worse."

"The production, sale and distribution of vaccines, particularly those for the flu, are handled almost entirely by pharmaceutical companies.

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It appears to me that the only effort to control much of anything in past years of medical manufacturing in our country has been as the other corporations here in our country. Bottom line thinking at its worst I think. And too, it seems to me that the pharmaceutical industry has been quite shortsighted in their philosophy.

Supposing some monstrous epidemic should break loose in the United States, perhaps, such as Ebola. Some disastrously contagious disease for which a vaccine exists, but due to the BOTTOM LINE our drug corporations didn't feel it was profitable enough to make any vaccine for it any more.

With all these investigations our duly elected arms and legs of government are going to spend much time and dollars trying to determine what happened and who to blame.

I don't think this is the time for that. That can come later. My opinion is that immediate steps should be taken to force the drug companies to produce the needed vaccines, in the amounts compared to the the percentage of their drug sales. Every year, for every one.

It could be possible that this humongous investigation into who did what to who and who is going to pay for it will not assure anyone that there will be sufficient vaccines for all of us next year - - - - or the year after and on and on. So much of our Congressional time is spent in investigations and our administration appointing "Czars," that little enough time is spent on doing something productive.

Perhaps though, we are better off this way. Look at the paranoid action of our government and its various arms after 9-11, pushing the panic button and rapidly passing stupid laws that we might, as a nation rue and struggle to correct for generations. At least that is the way I look at it.

It seems that the bearers of intelligence, those who have the straight skinny on things are called "activist" or dismissed as not having any importance in the scheme of things. But, here appears to be a case of justifiable saying by everyone . . . "We, as a nation of peons told you So ! . . . . . . . .

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