WyBlog

As The Wall Street Journal reported last week, the US government set out to have the H1N1 vaccine produced largely in single-dose syringes -- a demand that has set back production considerably, because multidose vials are far easier to make.

And the only reason to seek single-dose production was to please people needlessly worried about the preservative thimerasol, which is used to provide multiple doses of the vaccine. The fear -- utterly groundless and repeatedly debunked is that thimerasol can cause autism and other neurological disorders in infants and other young children.

If not for that decision, we'd have more than enough vaccine. Instead, because the government yielded to pressure from antivaccine fringe groups, we're behind the curve on protecting millions of children from swine flu.

Despite the technological ability to adapt quickly to a pandemic threat, our system has been hamstrung by pseudoscience evangelists.

The thimerasol scare, disproved time and again, persists in part because the same public-health entities that encourage immunizations have made significant concessions to small, persistent fear-mongering activist groups.

In 1999, the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control called for the maximum removal of thimerasol from vaccines -- even though both stated there was no scientific evidence of side effects.

Beyond pressuring the government, antivaccine activists have had an indirect effect on the private sector's ability to meet the need for vaccines. Lawsuits in the '80s claimed that DTP (diphtheria, pertussis, tetanus) vaccine caused brain damage; the court actions scared off investment in production facilities using the new recombinant technologies.

As a result, the number of firms producing DTP and other vaccines plummeted. In 1980, 18 companies made vaccines; by the end of the decade, only four were left.

The loss of innovation, investment and profitability in the vaccine industry means we have a gene-based development process for the 21st century -- but a production process that hasn't changed in the last 100 years.

We reap the consequences of that antiquated production process today -- visible on signs posted outside local drugstores and clinics across the country: "Out of H1N1 Vaccine."