IMHO, this is an example of the consequences of relying on politicians to deal with health issues. (The following are excerpts from a recent story. The link to the full story is at the bottom.–italics and bolding mine)
About a quarter of the H1N1 vaccine produced for the U.S. public has expired – meaning that a whopping 40 million doses worth about $260 million is being written off as trash……..
“Although there were many doses of vaccine that went unused, it was much more appropriate to have been prepared for the worst case scenario than to have had too few doses,” said Bill Hall, spokesman for U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Most leading health experts generally agree with that. Millions of doses of flu vaccine generally go unused every year and are marked for burning, but in recent years the leftovers amounted to closer to 10 percent of the supply, rather than the 25 percent expiring now. Government flu experts couldn’t recall throwing away anything close to 40 million doses before….
The government placed three orders last year for a combined total of nearly 200 million doses – an unprecedented amount and almost double the amount of vaccine produced in recent years for seasonal flu……
In Europe, where nations also found themselves with millions of unused doses, some commentators have attacked the World Health Organization, which declared swine flu a global epidemic, or pandemic. The critics have questioned the motivation of some WHO advisers who had links to the pharmaceutical industry. Some critics have simply lamented that a lot of anxiety was raised and money wasted, not just during the swine flu scare but also in government responses to bird flu and SARS, a respiratory virus that swept parts of Asia in 2003. “Each time the so-called experts told us that millions of people would be killed worldwide by the respective viruses. We have learned that the experts were utterly wrong,” said Dr. Ulrich Keil, a professor at Germany’s prestigious University of Muenster and a WHO adviser.
“This behavior is irresponsible because the angst campaigns confuse the priority setting in public health,” he said. The death toll from influenza epidemics is much smaller than the number killed annually by chronic illnesses like heart disease, cancer, stroke and diabetes, he added, in an e-mail Unused flu vaccine is a common problem. The June 30 expiration date is set by the FDA and has less to do with the vaccine’s shelf life than the desire to tweak the recipe each year to protect against the three flu strains expected to cause the most illness……
“It’s not necessarily because it’s degraded or not potent,” said Dr. Mark Mulligan, an Emory University vaccine researcher.
http://localtechwire.com/business/local_tech_wire/news/blogpost/7887392/
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Sounds very interesting.
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Yet another conspiracy theory. Lovely. The flu epidemic that was forecast didn’t happen precisely because there was enough vaccine and enough people got it. If a lot was wasted, it’s a shame. At least lives weren’t wasted instead.
I don’t see how you see conspiracy in that story. What I do see is that the ’forecast’ was wrong. Similar unrealized ‘panic’ forecasts happened during the avian flu and SARS. Too many chicken littles running around; everything is a panic these days.
I’m afraid there’s no way to prove your theory as to why the epidemic didn’t happen. You can’t prove a negative. The full story on the link states that there were several reasons why there was so much vaccine left:
• Tests of the vaccine soon showed only one dose was enough to protect most people.
• Much of the vaccine was not ready until late 2009, after the largest wave of swine flu illnesses passed.
• Swine flu turned out not to be as deadly as was first feared
What I see as the biggest waste is that the vaccines are not necessarily being destroyed because they are no good, but because they want to ’tweak’ them and make them ‘better’ (sounds like a moneymaker to me–and I’m sure the gov’t will be first in line for the new and improved version). I don’t see why they can’t at least send them to poor countries to use. Just because they’re not ‘the best’ doesn’t mean they wouldn’t help.
Wasting $260M is a lot more than a shame. It’s irresponsible.
And if they hadn’t made it, if there hadn’t been enough, if lots and lots of people had died, then it wouldn’t have been irresponsible? Forecasting weather is difficult; forecasting epidemics must be damned near impossible. I just can’t see why you feel that there was some sort of money-making plot afoot.
The only money making I see is in throwing away the unused injections just because they want to ‘tweak’ the vaccine to make it ‘better’ in some sort of way.
My point is not about a plot or conspiracy theory, but about responsible decision-making. I think there is some middle ground between ‘lots and lots of people’ dying and throwing away MILLIONS of dollars. There were folks calling for more calm, rational decision-making, yet the [overused] word ‘crisis’ popped up and all of a sudden money was no object–no different than when the ‘crisis’ tactic is used to justify wars. It’s about politicians working people up into frenzies so that we don’t see what’s really going on–power grabs and money wasting.
Hi Olga – Your post is interesting but sounds like a catch 22. I can see an issue of rationing care develop (with all sorts of folks up in arms) if they should happen to be too short one year, or if shots don’t cover the current strain of flu for some folks. Who gets the shots that might not be “tweaked” to cover what could be a deadly strain of flu - do we give those to poor people and say – well, at least they had some protection?
Understand your point on creating unnecessary fear, and somewhere along the line someone is making dollars at our expense (that’s so common with major corporations in most areas of business) but I recall years where flu shots were rationed to the point that many folks were scared or had already contracted the flu because they had to wait beyond the point where it had already taken hold and been spreading.
Past year was the first time I recall flu had a much greater impact on younger, more healthy individuals, then the elderly population. Watched a special earlier in the year (20/20 or dateline – not sure exactly which one) where young children, folks in their 30′s, generally healthy, almost died (a few did) or left with permanent disability because of the flu. I want to be sure that all who want a flu shot have the opportunity in as timely a fashion as possible, and the shot be as effective as we can make it. Wondering how much excess was left because of folks fearful of getting the shots? This was the first time in my area I recall so many fearing the shot might make them really sick.
Think about car companies who make decisions to accept a certain level of personal injury rather then make a design or other change that would prevent injury – they weight cost of lawsuits against loss of profits knowing some may die. Would hate to see us use less effective flu shots for some people and accept that a certain number may die because it may not prevent the illness as well as the next batch of meds.
It may be about politicians and the need for better decision making, but it’s also about people getting sick. It doesn’t have to be politicians working people into a frenzy. Either way – one group of folks will be worked up – I can see mass hysteria breaking out and folks hollering at their politicians at town meetings because someone might stretch the situation and scare others that it was a government plot to ration their care and kill people off. It’s a no win situation given the political climate.
Hi Lilly,
It’s been a while.
. I understand what you mean about corporations and risk taking. Having been in risk management for 10 years, I know that those decisions are generally made on well established data. My biggest complaint here is that they could be more responsible in their decision-making by using past data on other diseases. There is a point where we have to accept that some people may die. THAT is reality. It is impossible to spend away all risk. I’d rather put the money toward helping those that already need than on some speculative number that is not based on any type of reality.
The worst impact of this is not that a few MILLION dollars (not chicken feed) is wasted, but that, as one of the people quoted said: “This behavior is irresponsible because the angst campaigns confuse the priority setting in public health,” he said.The death toll from influenza epidemics is much smaller than the number killed annually by chronic illnesses like heart disease, cancer, stroke and diabetes”. That says to me that knee jerk reactions take money away from people that already have deadly diseases and put it toward people that may get something.
If this had been $260M dollars ‘wasted’ in a war effort, I’m sure we’d there’d be more complaints. Responsible decision-making is necessary in all areas of our government.
My question to the government is why did we give everyone Vitamin D3 which has been proven to have the same protective benefits without the side effects.