CDC: No vaccine surplus official says flu season still danger

Estimated read time: 3-4 minutes

This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.

Washington --- The nation's top disease investigator told lawmakers Thursday the United States has a shortage of flu vaccine --- a characterization that appears to contradict reports that millions of doses of vaccine could be wasted this year for lack of demand.

"We have a national shortage of vaccine. No doubt about it," CDC Director Julie Gerberding told the House Committee on Government Reform.

The panel's hearing was billed as "The Perplexing Shift from Shortage to Surplus: Managing This Season's Flu Shot Supply and Preparing for the Future."

With flu season in full swing across the nation and not yet peaked, about 3.5 million doses of vaccine remain unused. But the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention considers that amount a shortage because many people at high risk for flu still haven't been immunized, a CDC spokesman later said.

"The current surplus has led to confusion among Americans, with immunization recommendations varying from state to state and uncertainties of where ample supplies of vaccine exist," said Rep. Tom Davis (R-Va.), the panel's chairman.

But Gerberding, the first witness, disputed Davis' premise for the hearing.

"We still have a shortage," Gerberding said. While many "heroic" people not in a high-risk group heeded health officials' call to forgo vaccination, "we still have millions of high-risk people who haven't been vaccinated," she said.

Scientists at a meeting in Atlanta of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices detailed Thursday how a smaller percentage of people in the highest-risk group were vaccinated this flu season than a year earlier despite attempts to steer the nation's limited flu vaccine to them.

From September through December 2004, 58.9 percent of Americans over 65 were vaccinated against the flu, compared with 65.5 percent during the same months a year earlier, said Dr. Jeanne Santoli of the CDC.

To improve vaccination rates next flu season, the CDC is considering changing the way priority groups are offered the vaccine.

If priorities are stated clearly and vaccine is available, Americans will be vaccinated, scientists at the meeting said, citing statistics that showed more young children were vaccinated this season.

From September to December, 57.3 percent of children 6 to 23 months old received the vaccination, compared with 7.7 percent the year before. The huge jump reflects the committee's recommendation that children in that age group be vaccinated, published just before this flu season began, the scientists said.

Asked what ordinary Americans should do if they are not in a group considered at high risk, Gerberding said that if your doctor has vaccine available and you want a flu shot, go ahead and get it.

The flu season "has been relatively moderate so far," she said, but it "continues into March and April," so a flu shot still could be helpful.

"There is no crisis," agreed Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.). "While there is still not enough vaccine to immunize the entire high-risk population, there appears to be enough to meet demand."

But there is still confusion, said Davis.

"As the peak of the flu season approaches, it appears demand for flu vaccine has all but disappeared," said Davis. "Only a few months ago, our senior citizens were waiting for hours in long lines to get vaccinated. Now there are no lines at all."

The demand has dwindled in part, Gerberding said, because it appears to be "human nature" not to want a flu shot after December. The CDC is trying to educate Americans to continue to be immunized in January and February.

The U.S. vaccine shortage developed because one of the nation's two suppliers of injectable flu vaccine, Chiron Corp., had its license to manufacture in England suspended by British regulators for contamination at its plant.

Afterward, the CDC reserved vaccine for those at high risk but later reversed the restrictions when demand fell off.

--- Staff writers David Wahlberg and M.A.J. McKenna in Atlanta contributed to this article.