President Barack Obama declared H1N1 a national emergency last weekend, a status that will give the federal government greater flexibility and authority to contain the pandemic. But the current shortage of H1N1 vaccine underscores the severe lack of U.S. preparedness in responding to pandemics, whether through natural disease transmission or manmade bioterrorist attacks.
I am posting this in my capacity as the chair of the bipartisan Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism. Jim Talent, former Republican senator from Missouri, is the vice chair.
I'm posting this because I am worried.
Whether the threat is from naturally occurring disease or bioterrorism, the United States needs to be able to produce vaccines and other medicines faster and less expensively. We had six months of advance warning for the H1N1 pandemic. A bioterrorism attack will have no advance warning.
The answer is to create the infrastructure for rapid development of large quantities of safe vaccines and medicine. Modern methods will shave months off the typical six-to-nine months that current processes require. The newer methods can produce more vaccine and be quickly scaled-up, on demand. The investment in new technologies will generate benefits for both public health and national security.
Here's the scenario. A villain--whether an Al Qaeda operative or someone like Timothy McVeigh--uses a crop duster to spread just two-to-four pounds of anthrax spores over a major city. Let's say it's during an Independence Day celebration. Or the Thanksgiving Day parade. That action could kill more Americans than died in World War II. Clean-up and other economic costs could exceed $1.8 trillion.
A critical, on-the-ground, emergency response is to quickly have vaccines and medicine ready for the public, to reduce the impact of a terrorist attack and save lives.
It's not science fiction. Our bipartisan, congressional Commission unanimously concluded that unless the world community acts decisively and with great urgency, it is more likely than not that a weapon of mass destruction will be used in a terrorist attack somewhere in the world by the end of 2013--and that a biological attack is more likely than nuclear.
The United States--unlike the European Union and China--continues to use a 60-year old production method, using chicken eggs, to make H1N1 and other important vaccines. U.S. flu vaccines are safe and effective, but manufacturing can take six months, and is vulnerable to delays. The time it takes to make the vaccine is much longer than the time it takes for a flu virus to cause a pandemic. Right now, the H1N1 vaccine is being produced as quickly as possible, but millions of people will not have the chance to be vaccinated before they are exposed to the virus.
Part of the slowness is due to the fact that all six US manufacturers of flu vaccine use chicken eggs. A modern and faster method to make a safe flu vaccine uses a process called "cell culture." Cell culture does not require eggs. Vaccines for polio and the modern smallpox vaccine have been produced for decades using this technology.
Abandoning chicken eggs for cell culture has several advantages:
• Rapid scale-up in production would be possible.
• Egg-specific steps in the production process would be removed, saving time.
• Vaccine can be given to people who are allergic to eggs.
• Chickens are susceptible to avian influenza infections, which could disrupt the supply chain of eggs and cripple vaccine production.
The U.S. has invested in cell culture technologies, but none are yet available. The Commission released the two-minute video to engage the U.S. public on the need to improve the nation's capability to produce vaccines and medicine faster and less expensively. The video and resources are available on the website, which includes links to public discussions on Facebook, Twitter and MySpace.
Senator Talent and I want to hear what people have to think, to help inform our work on the Commission and our advocacy to help protect the United States from the threat of terrorism.
Consider this an invitation to join the conversation.
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A report in the British Medical Journal states:-
"CDC claims 36 000 Americans annually die from flu. What is going on?
...... according to the CDC's National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) ...... Between 1979 and 2002, NCHS data show an average 1348 flu deaths per year (range 257 to 3006)."
The report ends:-
"If flu is in fact not a major cause of death, this public relations approach is surely exaggerate
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The H5N1 avian influenza scared government
That scared government
There's been a benefit from this as far as H1N1 is concerned. Vaccine makers are able to supply more vaccine than they would have a few years ago.
As well, the bugaboo of annual flu vaccinatio
Flu vaccinatio
www.vaccin
Some people can use antibiotic
Some people can eat peanuts...
Some people can drive cars...whi
We need to be cautious in oversimpli
"The Right Thing To Do" - Who decides what is right for you? Do you want a blogger deciding that we all must submit to vaccines? Do you want the government to force you or your loved ones to be vaccinated
Because flu vaccinatio
You should be willing to take a little risk for a very large benefit to others, some of them who are people you're close to and some who are strangers. If you could at practicall
That's why it's the right thing to do.
Prior to the university system starting their academic year here in OR, I asked this question. A kid at my son's college died of the swine flu last spring. The school closed down for a week. The CDC knew that the H1N1 virus would be back again this fall. Why would people want to begin congregati
Are we just a nation of “wishers and a hopers?”
Aids was so mishandled by our country that it was allowed to spread into a epidemic, many people did not trust the science community when in fact it was the government who was wrong on the matter.
The leadtime from when the H1N1 was being investigat
The ability to act swiftly and produce a product that can be self-admin
For some reason, rather than address the basic problem--t
From what I understand
Best regards to all!
:)
The rumors about the dangers of the vaccine so OUTSHINE any valid informatio
Obama lied....pe
If you want to go to Bush lied, people died, then think about the cooked, stovepiped intelligen
It did nothing.
It spewed bigotry.
And did nothing.
It let people die. (Kind of reminds you of Dubhya reacting to Katrina, Rita, a huge tsunami.)
World wide most victims have always been women and children. Yet the Reaganites obsessed about homosexual
So the US did nothing while HIV grew into a world wide epidemic.
Other nations acted and the President of the United States, who claimed sole owner ship of being the only World Power, - did nothing.
The shortage of flu vaccines has been an issue for at least 7 years. The shot I used to get at my asthma doctor’s office I now have to stand in long lines outside grocery stores and church basements to get. These shots were given without prescripti
Every year a new vaccine has to be developed in anticipati
This last minute CYA political blame game just makes the whiners look all the more ingorant.
There is no incentive to invest in technology for a low-profit margin product. It would only cut into their profit margin more. Outsourcin
You could also look into the cost comparison of producing the vaccine versus treating the disease. Is it more profitable to treat the disease?
Points to ponder while selling us out to the corporate healthcare profiteers