Canada prepared to sell surplus flu vaccines to US

Link : http://uk.news.yahoo.com/041019/323/f4tmj.html

MONTREAL (AFP) - Canada is ready to sell surplus flu vaccines to anxious US consumers, where there is nationwide a shortage after British authorities closed down for health reasons a factory that supplies the bulk of the US demand.

"If there is anything we can spare for our American neighbors and friends in a way that doesn't jeopardize the safety and supply for Canadians, we would do so," Federal Health Minister Ujjal Dosanjh told reporters late Monday.

Canada currently has a surplus of some 2 million flu vaccines that it could send to the United States, said Canada's Chief Public Health Officer David Butler-Jones, quoted by CTV television.

In the United States, authorities appealed for the elderly not to join huge queues that have built up outside pharmacies across the nation.

One woman collapsed and died while waiting in a long line in California last week, while a town in New Jersey state began a lottery for its remaining vaccine shots.

The supply shortage occurred after British authorities closed down a factory run by US pharmaceutical firm Chiron Corp. after finding bacteria in vaccines. The factory provides almost half the 100 million doses needed each year by the United States.

Dosanjh said Canada had adequate supplies for its population this winter.

Canadian media reports have said clinics in Alberta and Ontario have started to receive calls from Americans seeking vaccines. Authorities in the two provinces have told doctors to seek proof of residence before giving vaccines.

The flu vaccine shortage has become a political issue in the heated US presidential election, with Democrat John Kerry charging that calling the shortages another "George Bush mess."

President George W. Bush has blamed the decision by US pharmaceutical to stop producing flu shots on their fear of getting sued.

Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson has repeatedly said: "We are not in a crisis."

Bush has repeatedly tried to halt a thriving trend of US customers buying via the Internet cheaper prescription drugs from Canada, a trade estimated worth one billion Canadian dollars (790 million US dollars) a year.

However, a coalition of Canadian associations of pharmacists and patients urged federal authorities in Ottowa to halt the Internet sales, arguing that there was a risk it could lead to shortages in Canada.

"Cross-border Internet pharmacies are not the solution, short or long-term, to the problem of high drug costs in the United States," Louise Binder, chair of the Canadian Treatment Action Council -- a member of the Best Medicines Coalition -- told reporters.

"There is no way that a pharmaceutical supply chain built to meet the needs of 32 million Canadians can meet the needs of more than 300 million Americans," said Jeff Poston of the Canadian Pharmacists Association. "Canadians will pay the price if this practice continues."