Vaccine Shortages In Most States
Shortages of vital childhood vaccines forced 49 of 50 states to ration shots in recent months, forcing parents to forego immunizations and risking outbreaks of disease, a government report issued Tuesday said.
The shortage dismayed doctors, worried public health officials and forced parents to seek out clinics or alternative doctors to get their young children vaccinated. Children forced to miss immunizations were left with only partial protection against potentially fatal ailments such as pneumonia.
The shortages are mostly over, the General Accounting Office, the investigational arm of Congress, said. "At the state and local levels, 49 state immunization programs reported rationing one or more vaccines," the report read.
"Shortages have also prompted the majority of states to waive or change immunization requirements for school and day care programs so that children who had received fewer than the mandatory immunizations could enroll," it said.
"States reported that vaccine shortages and missed make-up vaccinations may reduce coverage and increase the potential for disease spread; however data are currently not available to measure these effects."
Health officials said earlier this year there was no evidence there had been any outbreaks of disease due to the shortage but said the potential remains.
"At least in the short-term, with the exception of one vaccine (against pneumococcal bacteria), we are back to where we need to be," Dr. David Fleming, deputy director at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said in an interview.
CDC recommends that all babies get 11 routine vaccines - a combined vaccine against diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis, known commonly as whooping cough; Haemophilus influenzae, which can cause meningitis; hepatitis B; a combined vaccine against measles, mumps and rubella, commonly called German measles; pneumococcal disease; polio and varicella or chicken pox.
Over the past year five vaccines have been in shortage - the MMR vaccine, pneumococcal disease vaccine, DTaP, the tetanus and diphtheria booster and chickenpox.
Only 12 companies make vaccines, and five of the eight immunizations are made by only one company each.
Firms have left the business because vaccines are not highly profitable, because of stringent Food and Drug Administration requirements for purity and consistency in making the vaccines, and because of fear of lawsuits over side-effects.
"The cost of manufacturing is increasing dramatically and the price of vaccines in the marketplace is very low," Wayne Pisano, executive vice president of vaccine maker Aventis-Pasteur said in a telephone interview.
Federal health officials agree that companies need to be given more incentives to make vaccines. They also say the government should do more to stockpile supplies to cover any future shortages.
A Senate subcommittee was holding a hearing on the issue Tuesday.
"It is clear from this report that we have a system that cannot guarantee an adequate supply of vaccines from year to year and is unprepared to handle a potential outbreak of many routine childhood diseases," said Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I.
"We are putting our children in danger," said Reed, who was chairing the hearing. "We simply cannot allow decades of tremendous progress in reducing vaccine-preventable diseases to become undone."
For its report the GAO surveyed 64 state, territorial and local immunization programs supported by the CDC. It said the potential remains for more such shortages in the future.
It also noted that only a few firms make vaccines, so when one maker has a problem, or if a company decides to stop making vaccines, the entire system is hit hard.
The GAO recommends that FDA be given the authority to fast-track vaccine approval, and that CDC be directed to get to work on a plan to stockpile vaccines to cover any future shortages.