Many Areas Running Out of Flu Vaccine, County Warns

Los Angeles County public health officials warned Thursday that a large number of the county’s health districts are either out or nearly out of flu vaccine, which will force them to cancel vaccination clinics for many patients most susceptible to the illness.

Los Angeles would join a host of other counties that have been forced to stop or curtail flu vaccinations at clinics because of shortages. Orange, San Diego, Ventura, Imperial and San Francisco counties already have canceled clinics until further supplies of vaccine arrive.

California’s Department of Health Services, which supplies county health departments with the vaccine, has received just a third of the supply it needed from its Virginia distributor.

In Los Angeles County, the supply of vaccine administered by the Department of Health Services has dwindled to nothing in the Antelope Valley, the San Gabriel Valley and in the Whittier and Bellflower areas, said Dr. James Haughton, the county’s medical director of public health. Supplies in the San Fernando Valley are expected to run out Monday. Clinics in the downtown Los Angeles area, South-Central Los Angeles, the western part of the county and the South Bay are not expected to run out.

Health officials stress that plenty of vaccine is expected to arrive by late this month or next month, and that the flu season doesn’t usually peak until late December, January or February.

For now, however, nationwide shortages that initially were caused by production problems among manufacturers are being made worse by uneven distribution of vaccine and notable price inflation, critics say.

Because of those problems, officials worry that the elderly, the chronically ill and others most vulnerable to disease may not receive protection before the flu season begins in earnest.

Senior citizens are upset because they are being turned away from clinics where they have gone every year for years.

“Those over 80 years old should be able to get their flu shots. It’s getting to be our time to meet the maker, but the flu shots at least keep us from suffering,” said Mickey Stultz, 85, of Mission Viejo.

John P. Liebert, 78, who has severe coronary problems and lung cancer, said he is “very concerned” about the vaccine shortage, “not only for myself, but for my elderly friends and neighbors, too.”

Until this week, the loudest complaints about vaccine delays came from physicians, hospitals and pharmacists in the private sector, who say they have not received their prebooked supplies from manufacturers or distributors.

The cancellation of vaccination clinics by public agencies only heightens concern because the agencies direct their supplies to the most vulnerable people--including the elderly and the chronically ill.

In fact, the shortages in the private sector are increasing demand for vaccinations in the public arena--making already short supplies dry up even faster.

“People are seeking vaccine in unprecedented numbers,” Haughton said. “At one site where we were scheduled [to give] 500 doses, 2,000 people showed up. At another, we were scheduled for 300 doses and 800 people showed up. . . . The people who normally get it in the private sector are coming to us.”

Private doctors, pharmacies and hospitals--which provide most vaccinations--say they face the choice of waiting for the vaccine they ordered or buying it at exorbitant prices on the open market.

Ron Sato, director of pharmacy services at Los Alamitos Medical Center, said his hospital has not received a batch it ordered in April, so it was forced to order enough on short notice to cover staff members in critical areas. It paid six times the prebooked price.

“I think it’s really, really a shame that the flu shot vaccine was not distributed better to hospitals and nursing homes,” he said. “Somewhere, there is some kind if inequity of distribution.”

One San Francisco internist argued Thursday that the delays and poor distribution of vaccine amount to a “huge scandal.”

“You can buy heroin in San Francisco easier than you can get a flu shot,” said Dr. William Andereck, of the ethical affairs panel of the California Medical Assn.

A California congressman said Thursday that he is calling for hearings on the vaccine snafus.

“It is unacceptable for anyone in this country who wants a flu vaccination not to get one,” Rep. Gary A. Condit (D-Ceres) said in an interview. “We are questioning how [the production and distribution] has been handled.”

Doctors are particularly perturbed that large employers, drugstores and supermarket chains appear to have been holding inoculation clinics without giving priority to people most in need of protection. But some large stores have canceled their clinics because their supplies also are short.

“In California, we’ve canceled out on a lot of locations,” said Erika Bennett, a customer service representative for Albertson’s, which operates Osco and Sav-On drugstores. Where there is supply, “it’s lines around the corner, from what customers are telling me.”

Bennett said she was surprised that her company has been able to provide the vaccine in some areas when many doctors haven’t.

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Times staff writers Jennifer Mena, Elaine Gale, Jane Allen and Tina Dirmann contributed to this story.