Media contact: Veronique Rodman
vrodman@aei.org; 202.862.4871

AEI resident fellow Scott Gottlieb, M.D., testified before the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee Tuesday, November 10, 2009, on issues related to H1N1 (swine flu) preparedness. Gottlieb argued that the focus of legislation should not be on creating employment benefits specifically targeted to H1N1, but instead on ways to mitigate risks in future pandemics by providing Americans with early vaccinations.

In particular, Gottlieb provided the following recommendations:

The Use of Vaccine Additives to Improve Yield and Effectiveness. One step to improving readiness for the future is to better integrate the use of vaccine additives called adjuvants, which enhance or direct the immune response in the patient, into pandemic planning. Adjuvants could increase the supply of vaccines as they decrease the amount of raw vaccine material needed for each individual vaccine and are already in use in H1N1 vaccines in Europe and other vaccines in the United States.

Upgrades to Vaccine Manufacturing Technology. Seasonal flu vaccines and H1N1 vaccines are still made by the same process that has been used for fifty years: they are grown inside chicken eggs. This process is unpredictable, slow, expensive, and difficult to scale. An alternative is the use of tissue culture cell lines, which would allow for more rapid scale-up and better predictability. The U.S. should increase investment in cell-based manufacturing for influenza vaccines to address the current vulnerabilities.

An Increase in Domestic Production Capabilities. An adequate proportion of the worldwide influenza vaccine production capacity should be based in the U.S.--enough to supply a reasonable proportion of the U.S. market in the event of a pandemic. Currently all but one of the vaccine production facilities the U.S. depends on are located outside the country, and the drawback of relying on foreign plants was made clear when foreign countries claimed priority for the H1N1 vaccine produced in their own countries.

The Development of New Types of Vaccines. Continued research and development must be undertaken to find new platforms for vaccinating against the flu and substantial resources should be put behind these scientific efforts. Better technologies can aid in the development of vaccines that require shorter development times and protect against a broader range of flu strains.

The full testimony is available here.

Scott Gottlieb, M.D., is available for interview and can be contacted at scott.gottlieb@aei.org or through AEI's health policy program manager, Elizabeth DuPre, at elizabeth.dupre@aei.org or 202.862.7183. For additional media inquiries, please contact Veronique Rodman at vrodman@aei.org or 202.862.4871.