Salk Vaccine Distribution

The encouraging announcement that the Salk vaccine will be released again tomorrow is shadowed by the Health Department's continuing refusal to take steps toward a sensible nationally-controlled distribution of the vaccine. Despite all the confusion and delay of the past two weeks, inoculations will be resumed under the same "voluntary" system which has patently proven to be no system at all.

Widespread violation of the voluntary plan's stipulation that children from the most susceptible age group--five to nine years--receive the vaccine first has aggravated the natural pressures caused by the initial shortage of the medicine. Packages have been going to adults, friends of drug manufacturers, and doctors' children. Perhaps these violations would never have come to light had not the manufacture of the vaccine itself been found to be faulty in some cases. The validity of charges that the government failed extensively to analyze the vaccine prior to releasing it for public use, and that the present spot-checking procedure is inadequate cannot be fully substantiated until after the pending congressional investigation. Nonetheless, even the half-heartedness of the response to this week's embargo--many states and cities ignored it--shows the insufficiency of federal control over manufacture alone. Conflicting rumors, semi-panic, and misinformation which have prevailed, make centralized Federal jurisdiction mandatory during the emergency.

The blame for the national program's weakness plainly must be laid at the Department of Health's door. Senator Morse has reintroduced a bill he first suggested a month ago to set up a federal commission which would allocate and set priorities for vaccine use. More recently, many congressmen of both parties have joined Senator Ives in sponsoring a similar measure. Immediately after the voluntary distribution was announced, over 50 national welfare agencies and labor groups objected, requesting federal appropriations for free distribution of vaccine to low-income children, and federal control over records of inoculations. President Eisenhower himself has approved in principle the national regulation of distribution to low-income families and federal intervention if producers fail to comply with Federal Health Service recommendations.

Opponents, ignoring these requests, argue that Federal control could hardly increase the supply. This is obviously true; but federal jurisdiction would guarantee equitable distribution of the limited supply and insure that records were available to the public. Nor would Federal control be a step as others have argued, toward socialized medicine. Federal authority need last only so long as the shortage prevails and the vaccine's effectiveness is in question. Manufacturers predict that an adequate supply will be available for all by August at the latest. In her own defense of the voluntary system, Mrs. Hobby has pointed out how well the voluntary administration of penicillin shots was carried out in 1952. She forgets, however, that even then Health Service officials required stringent controls on distribution to prevent black markets.

Health Department opposition, then, seems unjustifiable. The present National Biologics Control Act, which gives the government power over the source of the vaccine, should be expanded or revised to allow temporary control over allocation as well. Do Mrs. Hobby and her department expect to wait until the peak polio season is over before they seek adequate controls?