MB Comment: If you call this a probe, I’ve got a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you. This is a PR Campaign by the CDC to deny responsibility and deflect public opinion from concerns about vaccine safety. The CDC administers the vaccine delivery program at the heart of this story.
Repeat after me Dr. Anne Schuchat and every other CDC stooge: I dunno, I dunno, I dunno, I dunno, I dunno, I dunno, I dunno, I dunno, I dunno, I dunno, I dunno, I dunno.
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Link between whooping cough outbreak and vaccine storage probed
By KOMO Staff Published: Jun 6, 2012
SEATTLE — The Centers for Disease Control is investigating a link between improperly stored vaccines, and Washington’s record whooping cough outbreak.
A new Inspector General’s report obtained by ABC News found a shockingly high number of vaccines that were stored at the wrong temperature, or have even expired.
“We found three of four providers were storing the vaccines in temperatures that were either too hot or too cold,” said Dwayne Grant, HHS Regional Inspector General.
75 percent of the samples in doctor’s offices and clinics checked by federal inspectors — 45 in all — had potentially damaged goods in their vaccine refrigerators. One out of four carried expired medicine.
The CDC says the bad vaccines out there have not caused a spike in disease rates, but they are investigating the rare whooping cough outbreak in our state.
“Based on what we know right now, the increase in whooping cough in Washington state is not based on storage and handling,” said Dr. Anne Schuchat with the Centers for Disease Control.
However, the CDC admits they just don’t know exactly why the whooping cough cases are surging in the area, and they’re still investigating the possibility of a link.
It’s alarming information for parents already concerned about the 16 vaccinations recommended for children in the United States.
Experts say an expired or temperature compromised vaccine will not directly harm a child, but it may leave them defenseless against the serious and deadly diseases those vaccines are meant to protect them from.
The CDC says changes in storage units and the amount of vaccines being stored these days could be factors in the problems.
The agency is vowing to fix storage systems that may be damaging crucial vaccines, and that could be a factor in the ongoing whooping cough crisis.
This incompetence and waste in the VFC is shocking and disgusting. I looked up the report http://oig.hhs.gov/oei/reports/oei-04-10-00430.pdf and wow, just wow. One important thing I noted was that these weren’t unannounced inspections. The offices knew two weeks in advance that the inspectors were coming and they still failed the inspections miserably. One week prior to the inspections they were given a list of requested documents.
All this warning, and many still weren’t smart enough to get their acts together. No doubt many fixed existing problems before the inspectors arrived because of the prior notification.
It looks like there is quite likely more than $100 million of waste just related to incompetence in ordering and managing inventories so that they end up with a lot of unused and expired vaccines that have to be tossed. That doesn’t count all the vaccines that probably should be tossed because they’ve been improperly stored and may be useless or harmful.
Also, I looked up some numbers and got a major wake-up call as to what the federal government’s spending priorities are. The President’s budget request for 2013 asks for a $262 million increase for the Vaccines for Children program but requests level funding for the Individual with Disabilities Education Act Part B.
In 2007, at the start of the recession, VFC’s budget was $2.5 billion but will be over $4 billion for 2013. IDEA Part B was funded at $10.7 billion in 2007 and its funding has only increased to $11.6 billion. So a 60% budget increase for VFC and a 8% increase for IDEA. Are there any other government programs that have received a 60% increase in funding since 2007?
That’s a pretty big price tag for an incompetently administered program that may or may not prevent a small number of relatively harmless infectious diseases. When compared to the paltry funding for IDEA, the rapidly rising funding for VFC is sickening.