Bill Clinton: “Senator Roberts is absolutely right. We believe it is critical to ensure that our basic seasonal flu vaccine production…”

“Senator Roberts is absolutely right. We believe it is critical to ensure that our basic seasonal flu vaccine production and distribution system is capable of delivering vaccines to all who need them, especially with the threat of an avian flu pandemic moving over us. Thousands of people die in our country every year from seasonal flu. It makes sense to us that we need to get that system absolutely as efficient as it needs to be so that then we could handle a rapid vaccine production, mobilization, and delivery challenge in the event of pandemic flu. Because we don't have a system through which to track vaccines, we cannot ensure that supplies reach the highest priority populations--including seniors and the chronically ill, those who should get vaccinated as early as possible in any given flu season. Many physicians and other providers have contacted us to express frustration at their continuing inability to accurately predict at which point they may be able to provide needed supplies of influenza vaccine to their patients. We do this in other parts of our economy. We routinely use tracking devices to trace deliveries of other goods in the private market. But yet we still cannot predict when a vaccine order placed in the summer might actually be provided to a doctor's office or a hospital or another place where the flu vaccine can be administered.…”