H1N1 Vaccine Not Being Used As Expected By Drug Companies And Governments

In spite of extensive news coverage and government officials appearing in the media urging the public to get the H1N1 vaccine, the usage has been far below expected levels. Several news stories and articles reported on the fact that people are just not getting the vaccine in the numbers the drug companies had hoped.

Even though the initial news reports were reporting that there was a shortage of H1N1 vaccine, and that the public should rush out to get their shots, the response has been so much less than anticipated that many countries have canceled as much as half or more of the orders of H1N1 they previously requested.

An article in Reuters on January 5, 2010, reported that the French government canceled over half of their H1N1 flu vaccine orders. The article noted that France followed cutbacks by Germany, Spain and Switzerland. In the case of the French government, the article noted that they “aimed to cancel 50 million of the 94 million doses ordered”.

A January 10, 2010 article in PharmaTimes, noted that the United Kingdom also joined other European countries in canceling orders of H1N1 flu vaccines as demand for the vaccine fell. The Reuters article noted that the UK had only received a fraction of the original H1N1 vaccine orders but that, “cases of swine flu in the UK have fallen significantly. Since the first cases were reported in April 2009 there have been 360 deaths and many of those people had underlying health conditions.” Even a news article on January 6, 2010 on the Healthzone.ca website reported that Canada was looking to donate their excess supply.

An article on December 18, 2009 on the website NaturalNews.com by health reporter Mike Adams posted a headline “H1N1 vaccine liquidation sale now on.” His article further reported, “People who got the vaccine are no better off than those who skipped it. In fact, there’s no difference in mortality between those who were vaccinated and those who weren’t, indicating yet again that the swine flu vaccine was a medical hoax to begin with.”