Great. Another Bush-hater rant. I'm surprised that you haven't posted that the recent bad weather (e.g., hurricanes in FL) are Bush's fault as well.

I also note that you omit President Clinton also received a flu shot given his recent bypass surgery (i.e., he, like Cheney, are at a higher risk).

Congress is almost 50/50 DEM and GOP and hold some of the most important functions in the country. We're talking about 500 people out of a population of 300,000,000 (i.e., totally insignificant). I don't think it's unreasonable that they get shots given the importance of their work. Do they vote to give themselves special privileges? Sure. Sometimes they are reasonable and other times they are not. By and large, most of these people could make a heck of a lot more money in their private lives, but choose to serve the country. You should at least recognize this.

Trying to blame the Bush administration for the contamination of vaccines in GREAT BRITAIN is just foolish. It takes six months to culture the flu vaccine, so if you find out you have contamination in July, you're screwed until January. If you're interested in understanding why we have shortages for flu vaccines, do some homework. It's a business that is high risk and low reward. Before Wyeth Labs got out of the flu vaccine biz, they had lost $50 million in its last year. The United States government has done nothing but make it even harder for the vaccine makers - particularly during the last administration. For example, the FDA required all unused doses to be returned to the manufacturers with money paid back. Given the difficulty in predicting how many doses will be required each flu season, incredibly low profit margins, heavy FDA regulation, and a extremely litigious society - it's no wonder we end up with shortages. We are now left with two major manufacturers of the flu vaccine, and they need to sell over a hundred million doses each year to be profitable.

Just like doctors who no longer can afford to practice (OB-BYNs for example) because of the high costs of malpractive insurance and overly burdensome regulations, we will also have serious problems with certain drugs given the HUGE disincentives to participate in this market.

Another fact: We throw away millions of unused vaccine doses each year. Be patient - manufacturers are working overtime to meet the demand and it's still way too early to cry that the sky is falling.