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Expired H1N1 flu vaccine to be tossed
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About 40 million doses of the H1N1 influenza A vaccine — about 25% of the amount produced last year — are slated to be destroyed after they expired June 30, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Published reports put the estimated cost of the expired doses at $260 million, but Bill Hall, a spokesperson for HHS, defended federal decisions early in the pandemic regarding vaccine production, noting that those decisions were based on information that was available at the time.
“While there were indeed many doses that went unused, it was much more appropriate for us to have been prepared for the worst case scenario than to have too few doses of the vaccine,” he said. “It’s very easy to look back through a 20/20 lens and armchair quarterback, but no one, even the critics, could have predicted how H1N1 would have evolved back in April and May of 2009. The important point is that the risk of influenza disease, even for those who consider it mild or moderate, is still far greater than any risk of vaccination.”
Hall added that there are many doses still available.
“There are about 30 million doses or more that have longer expiration dates, many of which go in as far as 2011,” he said.
Hall urged health care providers to hold on to unexpired vaccine until a sufficient supply of the upcoming trivalent seasonal influenza vaccine — which will contain the pandemic H1N1 strain — becomes available. — by Melissa Foster
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