Judging by a letter from Roy Blunt published in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch today (fifth letter down), this erstwhile BushCo cheerleader is working overtime to present himself as the latest David  to take  on the bumbling Goliath of (Democratic-controlled) big government. The slingshot he  hopes will lay the giant low is the shortage of H1N1 vaccine:

When did the Obama administration know the government was going to fail to have the shots ready, and why didn’t it level with the public? When did the slowness of vaccine culture come to knowledge? The federal government, after all, has been preparing for a pandemic flu season for years and has known about this threat for six months.

This newfound fervor is bemusing to say the least since, as the Missouri Democratic party has observed,  Blunt “was against preparedness before he was for it.” He voted against a supplemental appropriations bill that would have allocated $7.65 billion to bulk up H1N1 vaccine production. Maybe at that time he was more interested in his credentials as a charter member of the Party of No than in public health issues.  

Equally confounding is Blunt’s effort to load the issue of H1N1 preparedness with a slew of emotionally resonant but factually weak claims:

Terrorists will be vaccinated before you!

Blunt claims that he is  “outraged” by plans to vaccinate Prisoners at Guantanamo. Sadly, his bluster reflects either serious ignorance or willful disregard of good public health policy.  Arthur Caplan, director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania, responded to what he called the charges of the  “ever mind-numbingly off-base Rep. Roy Blunt” by observing that:

… even if you don’t give two hoots for those stuck in limbo at Guantanamo or locked up in prisons and jails all over the nation, these prisoners pose a huge threat to you.  Prisons are prime breeding grounds for disease, including swine flu. The prisoners infect the guards who bring the virus home to their pregnant wives and kids. From there, it moves out into the neighborhood, the school, the airport and beyond.

Wealthy Wall Street Bankers will be vaccinated before you!

Blunt, who has heretofore been among the staunchest defenders of Wall Street perks, now sputters that:

Expectant mothers in Missouri were being delayed until the eighth and ninth months of term while efforts were made to prioritize Wall Street bankers and brokers.

Unfortunately for the credibility of Mr. Blunt’s newfound populism, distributing vaccine to Wall Street Firms is part of a long-standing practice of sending shipments of vaccines to employers since it is considered to be an efficient method of distribution – as those who regularly get their flu shots at work know full well. The Post Dispatch reports:

The big banks took their turns in line like other businesses; Goldman has received only 200 of the 5,400 doses it has asked for. Citi has received 1,200, more than half of what it requested. They’ll have to follow federal rules for inoculating at-risk patients first.

The Obama administration is covering up its failure to protect you!

There may indeed be room to criticize the government for failing to adequately monitor the private manufacturers upon whom we rely for our supplies of vaccine, but it is difficult to claim that clear and verifiable explanations of the reasons for the delay constitute a coverup for negligence as Blunt claims:

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius didn’t have on hand the Post-Dispatch’s alibi for the administration – the vaccine culture doesn’t grow as fast as expected – when she testified before the Senate Homeland Security Committee on Oct. 21. I take it this tale was developed only after events have exposed the nation’s woeful lack of preparedness.

According to a news report, Sebelius told the committee members that:

Reasons for the delays are twofold, …  First, antigen production was yielding lower results than had initially been anticipated, … . Secondly, new production lines were established by the five vaccine manufacturers … . That’s the good news. The bad news is, there were glitches in some of those production lines

This explanation doesn’t seem to be at odds with technical explanations for the delays in producing the vaccine. As early as July, NPR cited problems with incubation in a story about impediments to securing sufficient amounts of the vaccine in a timely fashion. It has been common knowledge for some time. One is forced to conclude that Blunt is either conceptually challenged, or he was napping when Sebelius visited his committee.

All roads lead to “Obamacare”

Blunt can’t resist the opportunity to use the H1N1 shortage to lash out at Democratic health care reform legislation:

You better believe I’m outraged by this incompetence … . Try government-run health care, see what happens. The federal government can’t handle flu shots

It is obvious to anyone who doesn’t have a partisan horse in the race, that it is premature to talk about “incompetence.” It is particularly unfair coming from Blunt who was happily complicit in the orgy of incompetence of that characterized the period of Republican ascendancy under Bush.

Nevertheless, it is true that one might make the case that the government was negligent in its monitoring of drug companies. Additionally, Arthur Caplan argues that not enough has been done to deal with widespread public fear of vaccines – nor to compell compliance on the part of health care workers who, remarkably, often refuse to be inoculated. Indeed, getting people to take the vaccine may end up to be a greater problem than the delays in productions.

However, far from demonstrating the failure of government’s role in health care, Kathleen Reardon, a Professor at the USC Marshall School, makes the case that the problems involved in securing sufficient quantities of H1N1 vaccine in a timely fashion actually indicate the need for a strong public option in health care reform legislation:

If anything, the lateness of the H1N1 vaccine, actually the very existence of H1N1, tells us that we need a public option. … the more we allow pharmaceuticals and insurance companies to dictate when, how and to whom needed medication will be dispersed at reasonable costs, the more people without sufficient monetary means will suffer. By contrast, the more pharmaceuticals have to worry about whether our government might make a deal with someone else and that they aren’t running the whole show, the better off we’ll be.