Obama frustrated with companies over flu vaccine

A quarrel between the U.S. government and swine flu vaccine makers reached the highest level on Friday, with President Barack Obama expressing frustration at the slow pace of production.

Federal officials have slashed their initial estimates of how much H1N1 vaccine would be available—from 40 million doses by the end of October to 26 million doses available as of Friday.

Originally the Health and Human Services Department had predicted 20 million doses would roll out every week, but just 10 million have been produced in the past seven days.

HHS secretary Kathleen Sebelius has said she relied on estimates from the five contracted vaccine makers for the U.S. market—MedImmune, a unit of AstraZeneca , Sanofi-Aventis , Australia’s CSL , GlaxoSmithKline and Novartis.

“I think we certainly had hoped that their predictions on this would be correct,” White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said on Friday.

“I think it’s accurate to say the president has been and is frustrated with ensuring that this vaccine is delivered on time and won’t be satisfied until those that want to be vaccinated from H1N1 have the opportunity through the vaccine to do so,” Gibbs told reporters in a briefing.

Two senators—Susan Collins and Joseph Lieberman—have asked Sebelius to explain why the projections were so far off.

The vaccine makers say it has been harder than anticipated to make the vaccine using the current 50-year-old technology based on chicken eggs. Despite the difficulties, doses have been rolled out in less than six months—quicker than is usual for seasonal influenza vaccine.

“Not only did we complete our commitment to provide seasonal vaccine ahead of schedule, we are making every effort to make as much H1N1 vaccine available as quickly as possible,” Novartis vaccines chief Andrin Oswald said in a statement on Thursday.

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By Ross Colvin

WASHINGTON (Reuters)