the current shortage is the result of short-sighted strategy by vaccine-makers.

Just months before Americans began clamoring for the last remaining flu shots, 12 million doses from last year's stockpile of a virtually identical vaccine were dumped in the trash as expired.

Now, as clinics around the country struggle to cope with one of the worst flu seasons in years, the shortage is likely to raise questions as to why flu vaccine is declared unfit at the end of each season when it might provide a safety net for the following year.

Since this summer, an estimated $120 million worth of last year's flu vaccine was destroyed. But except for the June 30 expiration date, they were identical to the current shots now in such short supply. Experts say that flu vaccine can lose potency over time, but it does not spoil like fruit.

To some health experts, those expired vials are beginning to look very appealing.

"By and large, the expiration dates that are put on drugs are very conservative. This vaccine quite possibly could have been used," said Dr. Larry Drew, director of the UCSF virology laboratory.

Flu shot manufacturers overestimated demand for their vaccines last year, producing a record 93 million doses. But the winter of 2002-03 yielded the third mild flu season in a row. People didn't seem to care much about flu shots.

Left with a surplus last year, the two vaccine-makers reduced production this year to 83 million.

David Webster, a Bethlehem, Pa., drug industry consultant, said the current shortage is the result of short-sighted strategy by vaccine-makers. Fearful of being stuck with another surplus of vaccine, as occurred last year, they eased off production this year.


"I think manufacturers bear the full blame for this shortage," he said.

Webster said that it would have been difficult for vaccine-makers to produce 10 million extra doses four years ago, when vaccine prices were $2 a dose. But prices since then have nearly quadrupled. Vaccine-makers have such a profit cushion now, he argues, that it would have been a good business decision to make the extra doses.

"The cost of producing that is sort of a drop in the bucket," he said. "Instead of shaving it as close as they could, it would have been wise for them to have produced 'shortage insurance' themselves .... It was a huge strategic blunder on their part."


12 million old flu shots thrown out last summer / Vaccine is now in short supply as contagion rages
Sabin Russell, Chronicle Medical Writer
Published 4:00 a.m., Saturday, December 13, 2003