Earlier this month, the US government was forced to announce that only about 28 million doses of H1N1 vaccine would be available by the end of this month, about 30 percent below the 40 million it had previously predicted. That is not enough to satisfy people who are lining up for vaccinations around the country or desperately phoning their doctors and public health departments.
Since the outbreak of the H1N1 swine flu occurred in April, federal projections have been consistently and wildly overoptimistic and have had to be ratcheted down several times. As recently as late July, the government was predicting having 160 million doses by this month.
The reasons for the receding estimates start with the fact that the H1N1 virus is not growing as fast as expected in the eggs used to produce vaccine. Moreover, some manufacturers did not even know how little they were producing until a vaccine potency test became available around August, federal officials say.
Federal officials argue, and some experts agree, that the government did a good job in rapidly marshaling suppliers of vaccine for the flu pandemic.
But, these experts say, the government’s accomplishments and its credibility are being undermined by overly rosy projections that did not take account of the vagaries of vaccine production, making it look as if the vaccine effort is failing.
“To my mind, it was overpromising what there would be based on our historic experience with flu vaccines,’’ said Michael T. Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota.
