Approx $260mm in Swine Flu Vaccine Going To Waste

[Conan71]

The efficiency of government on display along with the price of hysteria, but what's $260mm when we spend a couple of trillion every year?

Expired swine flu vaccines cost $260M
Feds defend size of purchase; surplus will be incinerated
Mike Stobbe / Associated Press
Atlanta -- About a quarter of the swine flu vaccine produced for the U.S. public has expired -- meaning that a whopping 40 million doses worth about $260 million are being written off as trash.

"It's a lot, by historical standards," said Jerry Weir, who oversees vaccine research and review for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

The outdated vaccine, some of which expired Wednesday, will be incinerated. The amount, as much as four times the usual leftover seasonal flu vaccine, likely sets a record. And that's not even all of it.


About 30 million more doses will expire later and may go unused, according to one government estimate. If all that vaccine expires, more than 43 percent of the supply for the U.S. public will have gone to waste.

Federal officials defended the huge purchase as a necessary risk in the face of a never-before-seen virus. Many health experts had feared the new flu could be the deadly global epidemic they had long warned about, but it ended up killing fewer people than seasonal flu.

"Although there were many doses of vaccine that went unused, it was much more appropriate to have been prepared for the worst case scenario than to have had too few doses," said Bill Hall, spokesman for U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.



From The Detroit News: http://detnews.com/article/20100702/LIFESTYLE03/7020383/Expired-swine-flu-vaccines-cost-$260M#ixzz0uFoz0XCd


About 1/2 the doses in Oklahoma have gone bad:

http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/article.aspx?subjectid=17&articleid=20100720_12_0_OKLAHO721381

[Breadburner]

Not everyone was a sucker on the swine flu scare......

[nathanm]

I take it you would have also complained if not enough vaccine had been stockpiled and it turned out to be a big deal?

[Conan71]

I take it you would have also complained if not enough vaccine had been stockpiled and it turned out to be a big deal?

Nope, just more hysteria peddling. 

[nathanm]

Nope, just more hysteria peddling. 

I admire your consistency. It seems rare on the internets these days.

[Conan71]

I admire your consistency. It seems rare on the internets these days.

It's always good to be admired