I’ve been very attuned to the frustration level of LHDs over the delivery problems with flu vaccine this year. With an early start, put-or-pay revenue guarantees from the Federal government to produce over 117 million doses, three manufacturers, and four or five different vaccines, why can’t they deliver it on time? The “they” in this case is the private sector producers, Sanofi-Pasteur, GSK, and Chiron. No one seems to know, or at least take responsibility for this continuing debacle.
Do you remember in the aftermath of 9/11 and the anthrax aftermath? Congress gave several billion of our tax dollars to the drug companies to research better, faster and quicker ways to manufacture vaccines rather than the old fashioned way of using chicken eggs. Has anything come of it? Obviously not. Has there been any improvement in the delivery and distribution system to make sure that public health clinics receive vaccine in time for the season? Obviously not. With the exception of the last five years, which have been consistently bad years for vaccine delivery, they used to deliver it on time for the past several decades. Five years ago, the issue was price. An artificial shortage was created, and the cost of vaccine doubled for the next year. You think that would solve the problem. But it didn’t. The price keeps going up and service keeps getting worse. A congressional investigation is warranted.
And why can retailers such as Kroger, CVS, Meijer, and other chains whose sole purpose is to lure customers into their store to sell groceries get the vaccine before we do? In reality, there is no coordinated system of getting vaccine to the people and places that need it most and who are most accountable to the public. The episodes of the past few years instill complete confidence in the manufacturing and delivery system when an emergency arises.
After months of planning, most of us have had to cancel, postpone and reschedule our flu shot clinics. To add insult to injury, our friends at ODH have refused to adapt to the situation. One very simple solution would be to release the vaccine allocations to LHDs for drive-by pick-ups as it came in. But no, they refuse to think outside the box and adapt to adversity. These are the people who want to run the show in an emergency. This is an emergency and so far they have proven that their plans don’t include getting vaccine to the customer ASAP.
Perhaps one of the solutions in future years would be that we let the grocery stores and drug stores administer the flu shots. (Remember that our job is to assure that it is being done, not that we do it). We can reduce our vaccine orders by 75% and hold open walk-in clinics for the stragglers from November 15th to December 15th. And we would by the smaller amount of vaccine from the closest supplier that actually had it.
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