The flu vaccine is not the only vaccine that Americans could find in short supply due to a lack of enough manufacturing facilities licensed by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. In the past six years there have been U.S. shortages of more than half of the 12 recommended childhood vaccines, and there could be more.
Because of low supplies, Americans have faced shortages of vaccines against cholera, plague, rotavirus, adenovirus, polio, measles, mumps, rubella, chickenpox, diphtheria, meningitis, hepatitis B and other serious diseases in recent years....
Jennifer Brower is a science and technology policy analyst at the RAND Corp., a nonprofit research organization, and helped prepare sections of the Gilmore Commission reports on bioterrorism threats.
The remainder of this op-ed can be found at www.washingtontimes.com.
This commentary originally appeared in Washington Times on November 9, 2004. Commentary gives RAND researchers a platform to convey insights based on their professional expertise and often on their peer-reviewed research and analysis.