US Govt Faces No Win Fight with Flu Vaccine

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HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius began making appearances in which she promised that every American who wanted a vaccine would get one and said 250 million doses were on order.

"The one thing they have to stop saying is there is a dose for everybody," said Mike Osterholm, a former Minnesota public health official and expert on pandemic preparedness at the University of Minnesota.

"The virus has been in a race with the vaccine and the virus is winning. It doesn't matter if there is a dose for everybody if it doesn't get to them before they become ill."

(hat tip Avian Flu Diary)

Read on: http://www.reuters.com/article/GCA-SwineFlu/idUSTRE59J58H20091028

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I think you and I were quite incredulous when those promises were made Indigo. I even did a post called, "that is a big IF". How come two nurses off in the hinterland could figure out that the virus was going to beat the vaccine but all those goverment officials could not? By beat the vaccine I mean that the illness would be widely disseminated in the population before the vaccine got here.
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I think you and I were quite incredulous when those promises were made Indigo. I even did a post called, "that is a big IF". How come two nurses off in the hinterland could figure out that the virus was going to beat the vaccine but all those goverment officials could not? By beat the vaccine I mean that the illness would be widely disseminated in the population before the vaccine got here.

I think that it would have been far better for them to have told the simple truth. There was no way that they could have done this any faster. Safety was a priority with the vaccine despite what some are saying, and this virus is the fastest moving flu in history according to Margaret Chan of the WHO.

Always better to underpromise and overdeliver. We are lucky to have the vax at all, but it will be too late for many.The deaths rate seems to be accelerating. Too many were perfectly healthy and are now dead. All they had was the flu.

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Yes, I have no doubt that making the vaccine was the right thing to do. It would have been criminal not to at least try. They actually did a very good job. It is the high expectations the CDC produced that is causing the negative reaction, not the actual results. The article is doing a very good job of pointing that out.

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I think that it [is] . . . Always better to underpromise and overdeliver. We are lucky to have the vax at all, but it will be too late for many.The deaths rate seems to be accelerating. Too many were perfectly healthy and are now dead. All they had was the flu.

. . . It is the high expectations the CDC produced that is causing the negative reaction, not the actual results. The article is doing a very good job of pointing that out.

Agreed. As the lines length for H1N1 vaccinations the frustration level will rise as well.

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