Flu Vaccine Shortage: It’s a Sick Situation

Re “Anticipated Supply of Flu Vaccine for U.S. Is Abruptly Cut in Half,” Oct. 6: I find it amazing that this country’s entire supply of flu vaccine is produced in foreign countries. Do we not have pharmaceutical companies here that are capable, or perhaps it isn’t profitable enough for them?

We are now even outsourcing public health.

Janice Ballestracci

San Clemente

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Hah! For years the American drug industry has been sniping at the quality of Canadian drugs and the quality of social medicine in the U.K. Now it develops that the U.K. service has condemned the quality of the American flu vaccine (produced who knows where) and many Americans (including American physicians and hospitals) are desperately seeking to acquire Canadian flu vaccine! Thousands of American elderly will die because of this.

Alex Sheppard

Reseda

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Less than two weeks ago, top health officials assured the public that close U.S. Food and Drug Administration monitoring of the flu vaccine supply showed it was fine and there would be no shortage this year. I am so shocked that the FDA has spent all its time rejecting the cheaper and perfectly good drugs from Canada while assuring us that the defective vaccine from England was OK. Yet the good vaccine made in Canada is not approved here!

Frank Glaser

Rancho Palos Verdes

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So, once more, our privatized healthcare system is unable to provide enough flu shots for everyone who needs them. Why is it that a disease that in a typical year kills more people than died in the World Trade Center attack leads to little more than hand-wringing from the government or the private companies that produce the vaccines.

Georgiana F. Coughlan

Gardena