All Blog Posts from Political Hotsheet

It's only November, but fears over the H1N1 virus have already hit a fever pitch, with some Americans uneasy about their lack of access to a vaccine that's in relatively short supply.

There are signs, however, that H1N1 may turn out to be less deadly than many feared. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) released a report last week which shows similarities between H1N1 and other strains circulating in the population since 1988. According to the NIH, healthy adults may have a degree of immunity that can blunt the severity of an H1N1 infection.

Quest Diagnostics, which provides clinical laboratory services globally, also released a report last Friday stating that rates of infection by the H1N1 virus may have peaked in late October due to the impact of H1N1 vaccinations and changes in physician test-ordering practices.

So how bad is this pandemic really turning out to be? Some medical experts are calling for officials to inform the public that, despite the hype, the worst-case scenario has not, and likely will not, come to pass.

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The antiviral medication Tamiflu is the most commonly prescribed anti-flu medicine, and, as with the H1N1 vaccine, there may not be enough to go around.

In an effort to address anticipated shortages, federal officials released the last of their stockpile of children's Tamiflu at the end of last month, as the New York Times reported; the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has ordered new shipments of the drug, but they're not scheduled to arrive until January. (The CDC still has millions of doses of adult Tamiflu in its stockpile.)

Tamiflu is manufactured by a Swiss company called Roche Holdings, and the company has a patent on the medicine in the United States through 2016. Kristina Becker, a spokesperson for Roche, said in an interview Tuesday that the company is "confident" that it has the resources to meet demand for the drug.

She said that while supplies of liquid Tamiflu have been spotty in some areas, there are ample supplies of the capsule form of the medication, which can be opened up and effectively turned into liquid medicine through dilution with syrup. She also said there would be more shipments of the liquid version next month.

Roche "ramped up making the capsules at the start of the pandemic because we can make enough medicine for 25 times the number children in the same time it takes to make the liquid for one person," Becker said. "We wanted to be able to make enough medicine for as many people as possible."

Deciding how much Tamiflu is no easy task for Roche; the company says it takes about six to eight months to make Tamiflu.

Enter Dr. Yusuf Hamied, the chairman of a Mumbai-based drug company called Cipla. Cipla has developed a reputation for copying drugs and selling them at cheaper prices, perhaps most notably the AIDS drugs it has sold in Africa.

Earlier this year, Cipla won a court battle in India to produce a generic version of Tamiflu, called Antiflu. The company subsequently got certification from the World Health Organization that Antiflu was as effective as Tamiflu. It began selling it in India and Mexico at a discount from the cost of Tamiflu.

Now the CDC is reportedly signaling it is open to the possibility of importing Antiflu to the United States. (Representatives for the CDC have not yet responded to a request for confirmation.) Doing so would be controversial, since patent rules prohibit a Tamiflu generic coming onto the U.S. market for years.

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Congressman Frank Pallone, Jr. (D- New Jersey) said on "Washington Unplugged" Friday that illegal immigrants should be eligible to receive the scarce H1N1 vaccines if they fall into the high risk groups,.

"We should do the vaccination strictly based on whether its a high risk group because, you know, disease has no barrier based on whether you are documented or not," Pallone told moderator John Dickerson. "If you end up not inoculating people who are undocumented and they start spreading the disease then that hurts everyone."

Dickerson asked the congressman how he would respond to the argument that the already unproduced and scarce vaccine should be distributed to United States taxpayers first.

"That's acting against your own self interest," Pallone said. "That's like saying all of the poor people have a disease so we won't inoculate them, and somehow the rich people are going to immune. You've got to be practical about this and not worry about whether somebody has papers.'

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White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs denied today that terrorism suspects in the prison at Guantanamo Bay are receiving vaccinations for the H1N1 flu.

"There is no vaccine in Guantanamo, and there's no vaccine on the way to Guantanamo," Gibbs said during his daily press briefing.

Amid a shortage of the vaccine, the Miami Herald first reported last week that the Pentagon would offer the vaccine to the Guantanamo prisoners.

A military spokesman confirmed the report. Army Maj. James Crabtree said the vaccine would arrive at the prison this month and first go to guards. It would then be offered to inmates "entirely on a voluntary basis."

"I don't know what the Pentagon said," Gibbs said today. "I know, in asking yesterday, whether or not there was any vaccine there or whether there was any vaccine that was on its way, the answer to both those questions was no."

CBSNews.com Special Report: H1N1

Gibbs added that the White House did not stop the Pentagon from shipping the vaccine to the prison -- "there wasn't any there, and there wasn't any on the way," he said.

Only 28 million doses of vaccine were available by the end of the October, rather than the expected 40 million doses, presidential adviser David Axelrod said on CBS Nrews' Face the Nation.

"We will have all the vaccine we need in very order," Axelrod said.

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The president is what would is called a "key employee" in corporate America. While his compensation isn't other worldly ($400,000 per year), his influence in the world order is immense. If he were to become ill or incapacitated, the country and the connected planet would be destabilized to some degree.

CBSNews.com Special Report: H1N1

Therefore, protecting the president against natural and unnatural threats to his wellbeing is a very high priority. Apparently, that priority doesn't include getting vaccinated as soon as possible against the H1N1 flu virus.

The logic offered by the White House is that as a healthy adult with no underlying conditions, Mr. Obama doesn't fall into a priority group designated to receive the H1N1 flu vaccination at this time. He received the plain-old flu shot earlier this month, but will wait until the H1N1 flu vaccine is available to the general population before he gets the promised immunity given by the vaccine.

Given the issues around supply and demand for the vaccine, determining what constitutes "general availability" to the U.S. population will be an interesting call.

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First Lady Michelle Obama's office said Tuesday that Malia and Sasha Obama have received the vaccine for the H1N1 flu, otherwise known as swine flu.

A spokeswoman for Michelle Obama, Katie McCormick Lelyveld, tells the Associated Press that Sasha, age 8, and Malia, age 11, got the shot from a White House doctor last week after it became available to schoolchildren in the Washington area.

President and Michelle Obama are going to wait to get the H1N1 shot until members of higher priority groups have received their shots. The whole family, however, has gotten the seasonal flu shot.

CBSNews.com Special Report: H1N1

This weekend President Barack Obama declared the H1N1 outbreak a national emergency, a move that should help hospitals deal with the surge of patients.

Many people across the country spent their weekend standing in line for hours waiting to get vaccinated against H1N1, and many found that they were too late, turned away when available doses were gone.

As of today, about 16 million doses have been made available. CBS News medical correspondent Dr. Jennifer Ashton says it is doubtful whether the emergency declaration will have any impact on vaccine production.

On Monday Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius acknowledged the frustration of Americans waiting in lines for vaccinations. "I don't want to minimize the anxiety of a lot of parents who want to get their kids vaccinated, but we do have a vaccine that works.

"It works with everybody over ten years old with one dose, and the immune response hits more quickly than we anticipated, so actually as of today, we'll have about 16.5 million doses available throughout the country."

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On "Washington Unplugged" Wednesday, moderator Sharyl Attkisson spoke to Wall Street Journal reporter Alicia Mundy and Politico's Fred Barbash about a CBS News investigation finding that many people who were diagnosed “probable” or “presumed” to have 2009 H1N1 or "swine" flu actually did not have flu at all.

The three-month investigation found, based on state-by-state test results, that only a small fraction of cases that doctors flagged as most likely to be swine flu actually tested positive for swine flu at state labs. The vast majority of cases were negative.

Attkisson pointed out that those who think they might have had H1N1 "might mistakenly think they're immune, and might forgo the vaccine that they ought to have."

"And on the other hand, if you really have had it, the [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] is saying go ahead and get the flu shot anyway because you're not sure – but that's using up a limited amount of vaccine when we're hearing there are shortages," she continued.

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A CBS News Poll conducted in early October found just under half of Americans said they were likely to get vaccinated against the H1N1 flu, including only 28 percent who said they were very likely to do so. Other recent polls show similar results: for example, just 52 percent of respondents in an AP/GfK poll also conducted in early October said they were likely to be vaccinated.

In fact, those findings aren't much different than reaction to past flu outbreaks.

The last serious outbreak of the H1N1 virus in this country occurred in 1976. Then, the U.S. government undertook a public health campaign urging people to get the vaccine, and many millions of Americans did so. But questions arose about possible serious and potentially life-threatening side effects from the vaccine, and the vaccination program was cancelled in December.

In August 1976, 53 percent of Americans interviewed in a Gallup poll said they planned to get the swine flu inoculation shots when they became available -- slightly higher, but not much different, than today. Seventeen percent said they would not get the vaccine, and 30 percent weren't sure.

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The government's effort to distribute H1N1 vaccine throughout the U.S. is "a little bumpy" but should improve later this month, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said Wednesday.

Speaking to CBS' "The Early Show", Sebelius said "we won't have as much as everybody wants right away" but the nation would have "good supply" of the specialized flu vaccine in October and urged people to prepare for vaccinations.

A nasal spray version of the vaccine was made available this week, but not to everyone. Those at risk for flu complications – such as pregnant women, children under age 2 and people over 49 – are not eligible for the spray vaccine, Sebelius said.

"It's a fairly limited group," she said.

The injectable vaccines are, however, recommended for five primary groups – pregnant women, caregivers for children under 6 months, health care workers, people age 2 to 24 and older Americans with underlying health conditions.

Sebelius said an injectable vaccine will be available by the end of the week.

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