10.28.2009
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Missouri Congressman Roy Blunt today voiced real concern for Missouri families and demanded answers from the Obama Administration about their response to the breakout of H1N1 in the United States.
“The onerous regulatory and legal environment in the United States has placed America’s most vulnerable in danger,” Blunt said. “The federal government has clearly failed to meet a basic responsibility to move quickly to ensure the availability of H1N1 vaccines.”
“Congress needs to be asking serious questions about why the vaccine isn’t yet widely available, even though we’ve known for six months that we needed to be fully prepared,” Blunt said.
Recent reports suggest that the Administration’s response on H1N1 has fallen short, leaving many Missourians, including school districts, with no way to vaccinate the most vulnerable. Missouri’s Department of Health and Senior Services this week reported that it only has 28 percent of the H1N1 vaccine that it needs.
“Overseas manufacturers, particularly in Europe, are creating H1N1 vaccines at a much faster rate because they don’t contend with the same inflexible regulatory environment that our domestic manufacturers face,” Blunt continued. “Only now, as flu season hits, do we find out that we don’t have enough H1N1 vaccines to treat the most vulnerable Americans.”
“The American people expect the federal government to protect them in the face of a pandemic,” Blunt concluded. “If the current administration cannot manage what is a basic responsibility of the federal government, how can they be expected to micro-manage doctor-patient relationships? Is this what we can expect from government-run health care?”
Blunt is a member of the House Energy & Commerce Subcommittee on Health, which exercises oversight over public health and pandemic preparedness.
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