In Reply to EIR, Fauci Defends Vaccine Cartel

November 3, 2009 (LPAC)—The director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Anthony Fauci, defended the corporate H1N1 vaccine cartel which, the Federal government has said, "over-promised" on the delivery of the the vaccine, leaving millions of Americans vulnerable to the pandemic. At a Health and Human Services Department press conference today, Dr. Fauci said that "experience tells us that a partnership with industry with what they do very well" is best. In saying so, Fauci ignored the experience of 1950s America, for example, when the U.S. government directed the successful vaccine campaign against polio.

Fauci made his defense of the cartel in response to a question from EIR: "The Strategic National Stockpile has now released the last of its supply of Tamiflu—some 234,000 doses. The CDC has said that the stockpiles won't be replenished until next year by the manufacturers. And the government has said that the manufacturers 'overpromised' on the vaccine itself. How have these two things been allowed to happen, when the lives of Americans at stake? And why doesn't the government itself produce the vaccine?"

Fauci contended that the problem is not whether it is government or industry that directs the production of the vaccine. He said the problem is with the technology. Despite years of investment to be able to produce vaccines in cells, he said, production is still dependent on the "fragile" procedure of producing vaccines in eggs. Since that was the technology available in April, when the decision was made to produce the vaccine, he said that is the technology that had to be used.

Fauci and his colleagues also said that the Tamiflu supply that was released by the Strategic National Stockpile was oral liquid Tamiflu for children, and that ample supplies of adult Tamiflu exist.

In his opening remarks, Fauci said that National Institutes of Health clinical trials have shown that all segments of the population other than those six-months to nine-years-old, develop "robust" immune responses to a single dose of the H1N1 vaccine, and show no added benefit from a second shot, whereas the youngsters benefit from a second dose.