Tuesday, November 3, 2009

I continue to be all over the press – last night CBS Evening News; today CBS Morning News to explain the complex issues of why we do not have a lot of vaccine at hand – the virus just is not growing very well in eggs and much against my advice, HHS (BARDA, Jenny Backus) promised that we would have a certain number of doses and now we do not. They relied on and believed the projections from the pharmaceutical companies when I told them not to. They wanted to give a crisp message (they were still in campaign mode) and I told them not to. Now, everyone looks to me for what to do and they are putting me out on all of the shows. Actually NIAID is the only one giving good news sine our pregnancy trials and pediatric trials are giving good data – only 1 dose of 15 ugs for pregnant women is required for robust response and we proved that 1 dose for older kids (10 – 17 years) is good and 2 doses for younger kids (6 months to 9 years is required). I announced this at a press briefing at HHS yesterday. This is in conflict with WHO who say that we should give 1 dose to all kids.