Elizabeth Cohen: Vaccine shortage critical

CNN's Elizabeth Cohen

(CNN) -- A new government study spotlights a critical shortage in the nation's stockpile of childhood vaccines. All but one state has had to ration vaccines and lawmakers in Washington are planning to take up the issue. CNN medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen has the latest developments.

COHEN: According to this report by the General Accounting Office, there are eight vaccines that children are supposed to get, and over the past two years, there have been shortages of five of those eight vaccines. And the results of that are that 49 states have begun some form of rationing of the vaccines. And because of the shortages, most states have changed their vaccine requirements.

In other words, they waived the requirements for kids to go to school or day care, or they said, you know, you can get them later. The vaccines have been very, very effective with these diseases -- diphtheria, measles, mumps, polio. There is a concern that these diseases could slowly begin to creep back into the population, not overnight, but slowly.

Why has there been these shortages? There are several reasons. The biggest one is that not enough companies are making them. In 1967, 26 companies made vaccines. In 2002, 12 companies make vaccines.

In other words, there is only one company making five of these vaccines. So that any little problem that that company has means that there is a shortage of that vaccine and vaccines are difficult to make. They take a long time. They're technically a complicated process.

HEMMER: Two questions then: What do you do about it? And given the shortages you just described to us, are things getting any better?

COHEN: Well, what the General Accounting Office says is that there are two things that the government can think about. First of all, the FDA has what's called fast-tracking of drugs. In other words, the review process would be faster than usual. And they say they ought to think about putting some of these vaccines on fast track, because there are some vaccines in the pipeline.

Secondly, the CDC is supposed to have a six-month stockpile of all childhood vaccines, and they don't. They are required by law to. That's another thing that the General Accounting Office brings up.

Is it getting better? And the answer is, according to the CDC, yes. They said, in July, that production for all but one of the vaccines where there have been shortages is beginning to step up.

But the General Accounting Office says any one problem for any one of these vaccines means a shortage in the future. The system is very vulnerable to shortages.