Flu shot panic.

• Author: Peters, Charles
• Position: Tilting at Windmills

What can be learned from the great flu shot panic of 2004? Clearly the government must guarantee the manufacturer that the necessary number of flu shots will be purchased at a price sufficient to assure the manufacturer that he won't lose money.

Beyond that, the FDA has to do a better job of checking with regulatory agencies in other countries. This time, the agency relied on a plant in England to tell it of any problems. If the FDA had asked its British counterpart, the Medicines & Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency, it would have found out that there were plenty of problems. Why didn't the FDA ask?

"We followed standard procedures and this is the way we have always done it," explained the FDA's Lester Crawford.

Another lesson is that where shortages are threatened, the CDC should have the power to order that shots be given first to the people who need them most and then according to a fair system of priority. It also should be able to allocate the vaccine so that supplies are available to meet those priorities. This year's shortage was clear by early October. But the CDC failed to act, and on Oct. 16, a Washington Post headline told us "Flu Vaccine Allocation in Area Haphazard, No System Exists for Haves to Share Supplies with Have-nots."

The CDC should also be responsible for telling people what's going on. As late as Oct. 21, Gardiner Harris of The New Fork Times reported "local and state officials are complaining that their federal counterparts have given them almost no information to deal with the...