Lessons from H1N1

February 3, 2010

After public health authorities in the United States spent months encouraging, cajoling, and frightening the public into getting vaccinated against the H1N1 influenza virus, they had no vaccine to give. The second wave of the H1N1 pandemic hit North America in early fall 2009. Millions were infected and thousands died before people were immunized. Of the 250 million doses of vaccine ordered by the U.S. government, only five million had been delivered at the height of the outbreak because of problems with vaccine production. (Bioethics Forum)