I wouldlike to start off with a quote from the book concerning stockpiling the flu vaccine, (which at the time wasswine flu). Dr. Edwin D. Kilbourne, at the time, a leading virologist and chairman of the microbiology department at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York, “when looking back on those days, he asked himself why he and others did not push harder for stockpiling the vaccine, an option that, in retrospect “seems so obvious and attractive.” He needed to remind himseld of two pressing reasons that persuaded him that the best choice was to vaccinate everyone: first, he said if a group had decided to make and store the vaccine, that would have led to “faltreing Congresional support for what was already a troubled program (CDC). Momentum would have been lost. Second, Kilbourne recalled, “those responsible for the vaccine program in the field told us that the problems of distribution, setting up clinics, and vaccination itself, would have preclude prompt action if rapid spread of the virus occured in the customary winter season.” for the first time, there was both knowledge and time, to prepare for mass immunization. So, he said, “if we believe in preventive medicine we have no choice.”“ From FLU-The story of the Great Influenza Pandemic of 1918 and the search for the virus that caused it. Author-Gina Kolata copyright 1999
It seems to me, that we have a similar situation here, upon reading reports, today of the CDC stockpiling vaccine, the WHO recommending not to do so. Should countries stockpile vaccines, even though there is a chance the vaccine would render itself usless if a pandemic hit three years from now, due from expiration, or a different strain being the threat? Is Dr. Kilbourne’s statement true, “if we believe in preventive medicine, we have no choice.”?
there was also a desire of testing the newly gained ability to vaccinate
the population.
Stockpiling vaccine is not so easy and someone said : “we can best stockpile the
vaccine inside the people rather than in boxes “.
But, as you wrote this was critisized later.
BTW. Kilbourne thinks a H5N1 pandemic is unlikely.