Bush’s Anti-Pandemic Program Offers no Panacea, but Progress

The Bush administration’s announcement yesterday of a $7.1 billion program to fight a possible pandemic stemming from avian flu is far from perfect. However, it is a fine start to a problem governments the world over have ignored for too long. Whether the bird flu does turn into the scourge the tabloids fear is irrelevant. The efforts to build up public health capacity are needed whether this bug kills a few million or not.

The $7.1 billion isn’t much when looked at as a per capita investment, around $24 a head for the nation. For that, Mr. Bush is buying 20 million doses of the current vaccine against the H5N1 flu virus, a $1 billion stockpile of Tamiflu and Relenza, and $2.8 billion to accelerate vaccine technology growth. Clearly, this is inadequate to protect every American from the disease, but 20 million doses might keep the health-care workers in position and aid some of the patients who first contract it – thereby reducing the overall exposure of the population.

Another move Mr. Bush announced yesterday is the capping of financial liability for the vaccine makers. While it is true that lawsuits may deter the production of vaccine, an even bigger deterrent is the unwillingness of the government to buy all the vaccine that gets made whether it is used or not. This arrangement insures places like Canada of sufficient vaccine year in and year out. In the US, vaccine makers have traditionally had to guess about the variety of flu that will break out and about the number of doses needed in a given year. If the government were to guarantee the purchase of 300 million doses each year, there would be enough to go around -- with some left over in case of a bad batch as happened last year. Should the vaccine be needed, it will be there, and if not, well, it’s rather like insuring a car and not having an accident.

That said, another positive plank in the program is the acceleration of the vaccine production technology. Spending doesn’t always equate with technological progress because scientific insight and engineering break-throughs are sometimes serendipitous. However, there are promising techniques that would allow vaccines to be growth in cell cultures rather than in chicken eggs as the world has been doing for decades. This could result in easier-to-handle, faster-growing cultures.

All the same, the Democrats pushed through an $8 billion emergency appropriation in the Senate on Thursday of last week, the day before Scooter Libby’s indictment. They even gave the president complete control over how it gets spent. So, the administration is playing "me, too."

The good news is that the H5N1 virus hasn’t mutated into a strain that is readily passed from one human to another. Indeed, there is no scientific requirement for it to do so. It could just as easily become a much less virulent strain with a much lower fatality rate. It might not become the pandemic disease everyone fears. But to have public officials start treating public health like a public good makes one feel better already.


© Copyright 2005 by The Kensington Review, J. Myhre, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent.
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