The
Washington Post has a disturbing article regarding the Pediatric Vaccine Stockpile.
(The WaPo also has a counter-productive registration procedure, use the wonderful
bugmenot to circumvent this little odious bit of tripe.)
From the Post:
Pediatric Vaccine Stockpile at Risk
Makers Hesitate to Supply Government
Just three years after the largest and most serious shortage of childhood vaccines in two decades, the federal government's stockpile of childhood vaccines, designed as a buffer against shortages, is nearly empty -- and without immediate prospects of being filled.
Three of the four companies that produce the shots recommended for every American child told the federal government last year that they would not sell their products to this little-known but important piece of the nation's public health infrastructure.
Although opinions differ, it appears that the Pediatric Vaccine Stockpile has become an innocent bystander wounded in the government's crackdown on deceptive accounting practices.
No one has accused the vaccine manufacturers of wrongdoing. However, they can no longer treat as revenue the money they get when they sell millions of doses of vaccine to the stockpile because the shots are not delivered until the government calls for them in emergencies. Instead, the vials are held in the manufacturers' warehouses, where they are considered unsold in the eyes of auditors, investors and Wall Street.
Today, the stockpile contains 13.2 million doses of vaccine, less than one-third of the goal of 41 million doses. It is supposed to hold supplies of eight shots that together protect against 11 childhood diseases. However, for two of those products -- including the workhorse DTaP, which protects against diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis -- it contains no doses. The vaccine is not in storage in company warehouses or anywhere else. It simply does not exist.
Created by Congress in 1983, the stockpile is supposed to contain enough vaccine to supply the nation's needs for six months. Its virtual collapse is an acute embarrassment to the Department of Health and Human Services, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the vaccine makers.
And the governmental agency responsible for this:
Although the vaccine makers may use income from the sales any way they want, in accounting terms the money can no longer be "recognized" as revenue. Because the amounts of vaccine are large -- the stockpile has a target of 10 million doses of DTaP, for example -- excluding those sales from the bottom line makes some companies unhappy.
The accounting change came after the SEC issued a bulletin in December 1999 seeking to clear up confusion about revenue recognition.
Write your representatives, especially if you have kids...