Letter: Shortage result of shortsightedness

Friday, Oct. 22, 2004 | 9:42 a.m.

As the story goes, the British put all their cannons on one ship and all their gunpowder on another. As bad things happen, the ship with the gunpowder blew up, leaving them with useless cannons. The story came to mind in thinking about the current shortage of flu vaccine.

It was a colossal mistake by the governmental agency that controls the production of the flu vaccine to have contracted with only two companies to make it.

One company had contamination that voided its delivery of the much-needed vaccine. So we have a massive shortage. Now we hear there are talks of an investigation of what happened. Needless to say, this mistake will have repercussions. There will be sickness and possible deaths. And it surely will have an impact on our fragile economy.

FRANK NAGY

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