This is from our local progressive weekly newspaper...it would seem that the CDC is vulnerable to manipulation by Big Pharma. It is something to keep in mind when they trot so-called objective sources to tell us the sky is falling. When you are dealing with ANY government agency - no matter how objective they are supposed to be - we need to remember that ultimately, they aren't the ones running the show.
Excerpt...
By the fall of 2003, a couple of consecutive mild flu seasons, paper-thin profit margins, and declining vaccination rates had taken their toll. In less than two years, the number of flu vaccine manufacturers in the market had dropped from five to three. The pressure mounted on the CDC to ensure a profitable flu vaccination season by "expanding" the vaccine market. By that, corporate leaders meant that they wanted the CDC to recommend vaccination for young, healthy people, people for whom the CDC didn't recommend a vaccine -- until this year. People who, it could be argued, don't need a flu shot.
The three pharmaceutical manufacturers in the flu vaccine business, all of whom successfully market other drugs, made it clear that if the government failed to find enough arms and noses for their vaccines, they might reduce supply or exit the business, leaving the public vulnerable to a true vaccine shortage.
Drug company executives aren't exactly shy about the issue.
"Raising demand is key to raising supply," Howard Pien, president of Chiron Corporation, told the House Government Reform Committee this month. James Young, president of research and development at MedImmune, Inc., which makes FluMist and other flu vaccines, even went so far as to tell the same government officials that if the CDC would recommend universal vaccination, vaccine manufacturers might then be willing to guarantee that there would be enough flu vaccine to meet routine demand on an annual basis.
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