# 3326
Despite ongoing (and frankly, somewhat mystifying) media assurances that `a swine flu vaccine will probably be available in the fall’, the CDC and the HHS are making no promises.
It will be interesting to see how the media reports today’s statements, by Dr. Anne Schuchat of the CDC, where she once again reminds us that:
There has not been a decision to actually vaccinate people.
<snip>
You know, we have mechanisms in place to develop a vaccine and to test it and to study it, and we're going to need to look at the results. We're going to need to study the results.
We cannot assume that everything is going to go perfectly. There may be some bumps in the roads, there may be some really big bumps in the road.
I think we need to be prepared for the possibility that a good vaccine may not be created or that we may not have it in sufficient time before we have a lot of disease.
Pretty straight talk.
But its not as if the CDC hasn’t already said these things, albeit slightly less bluntly, a dozen or more times over the past six weeks.
Dr. Anne Schuchat and Dr. Richard Besser have both wisely declined to speculate about vaccine delivery schedules, quantities, or about who would received them.
What they have said is, that if everything went perfectly this summer, and if the decision to move ahead with the manufacturing of the vaccine is made, the earliest any vaccine could be available is this fall.
And that somehow gets reported with this headline:
Rarely is any mention made of our limited production capacity, and the kind of prioritization that will probably be required during any immunization program.
We’ve discussed the vaccine prioritization system many times, the last time in The Tracks Of Our Tiers
Right now, only enough H1N1 antigen has been ordered to produce roughly 20 million doses of vaccine, as reported in this story by David Brown and Rob Stein of the Washington Post.
U.S. Asks Firms to Make Swine Flu Vaccine
By David Brown and Rob Stein
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, May 23, 2009The federal government has asked three drug companies to make enough swine flu vaccine to immunize at least 20 million people in key positions in health care, national security and emergency services, officials said yesterday.
These 20 million people are part of the first tier of 24 million people who are expected to receive a vaccine first. And this new flu shot will have to pass animal and human clinical trials before they can receive it.
It simply isn’t possible to manufacture and deliver enough vaccine to vaccinate 300 million Americans all at once.
People at greatest risk, or who perform key jobs important to national security and the nation’s infrastructure - are by necessity -first in line to receive a vaccine.
The goal, of course, is to eventually offer a vaccine to all Americans. But how long that might take is unknown.
And given the ability of the virus to mutate, it may not even be possible.
As Dr. Schuchat reminds us, vaccines are not our only defense against a pandemic virus.
We have other efforts like appropriate use of the antiviral drugs, mitigation efforts like social distancing or school dismissals as appropriate.
There's a lot we can do individually and in our communities and I think we have to be ready for the idea that we may not get a vaccine as soon as we'd like it, or we may not get a vaccine that works as well as we would like it, or we might not even get a vaccine.
We're really taking all the steps we can to make sure that we have one if we need it.
But I think there is uncertainty in that just like there is uncertainty in the nature of the influenza virus.
