Senators Call for Changes in Vaccine Distribution – CQ Homeland Security

The leadership of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee sent a letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius on Friday asking her to re-examine the way the department is distributing the H1N1 vaccine.

HHS has distributed vaccine to states in proportion to their populations based on the idea that each state has about the same percentage of high-priority people in its population, the letter said. But while some states, such as Oklahoma, have opened up vaccinations to the general public, Maine and Connecticut still don’t have enough vaccine to protect high-risk groups, including pregnant woman and certain hospital workers, the senators said.