The US flu vaccine crisis: a debacle for profit-based medicine

The total number of vaccines available in the US is estimated at barely 60 million, compared to the 90 million people in the categories most at risk, such as the elderly, small children, pregnant women and people with respiratory ailments. Nearly half the total supply, some 50 million doses, had to be discarded because of contamination at the manufacturing facility in Liverpool, England, operated by the US-based Chiron Corporation.

The potential toll in lives is staggering. As the New York Times noted in a recent editorial, “Thirty-six thousand Americans die of the flu every year. If that number rises by just a tenth because we have only half as much flu vaccine as we need, the increase in deaths will exceed the number killed by Osama bin Laden on Sept. 11, 2001.”

There will be no “war on flu” from the Bush administration, however, and not even a hint of criticism of the private, profit-driven health care system that is responsible for the likely deaths of thousands of Americans. The White House response has been limited to soliciting a comparatively small number of additional doses from the other major manufacturer for the US market, the French-owned Aventis Pasteur, and from other overseas suppliers.

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http://wsws.org/articles/2004/oct2004/flu1-o26.shtml