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HHS questioned about low number of smallpox vaccinations

Emergency Management Alert, July 28, 2003

Public health officials faced questions from a Senate panel July 24 about why fewer health care workers than expected have received smallpox vaccinations, CongressDaily reports.

During a hearing on bioterrorism readiness, lawmakers also said they were nearing an agreement on legislation to enact President Bush's BioShield plan to encourage commercial development of vaccines for biological threats.

Congress passed legislation in April to compensate health care workers harmed by side effects of the smallpox vaccine, which has been linked to heart problems and other complications. The administration had hoped to vaccinate between 400,000 and 500,000 emergency and health care workers who respond to a smallpox outbreak, but as of mid-July, only 38,000 civilian public health workers had received vaccinations.

Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-MA, a ranking member of the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, blamed the delay on the failure of the Health and Human Services Department to release a table of vaccine-related injuries that are eligible for compensation, as required by the legislation.

Julie Gerberding, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said the table is nearly complete, but progress was slowed by legal and scientific issues, including a recently discovered complication involving heart attacks. The low vaccination rates were also due to the perception that a smallpox attack is less likely than it was in the wake of 9/11, even though federal officials still assume that such a threat is real, Gerberding added.

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