It's not just in the U.S. that the vaccine supply is shorter than expected. One of the reason they give here is that there is a special additive they have had to add to the vaccine for pregnant women and that isn't available yet.

Here in Canada they are limiting who gets the vaccine at present. First pregnant women who wish to take the vaccine without the additive, people with immune diseases and people under the age of 65 with chronic illnesses. This week babies 5 months to 12 years of age and health care workers are now eligible. The lines a long and of course some people are trying to jump the queue but most are being turned away.

I am just going to get the regular flu shot when it is available from my doctor because I think for most of us that flu is far more serious than this one which seems to attack healthy young people.      

I found this on Google.   I cannot see how our government can be blamed for not getting enough vaccine when it is not entirely produced in the U.S.

By MICHAEL RUBINKAM, Associated Press Writer Michael Rubinkam, Associated Press Writer – Thu Oct 22, 2009 9:26 am ET

At its two plants in the Pocono Mountains town of Swiftwater, Sanofi Pasteur, the top U.S. supplier of seasonal vaccine, is churning out more than 75 million doses of swine flu vaccine and 50 million doses of the winter flu variety.

Sanofi spokeswoman Donna Cary said egg-based production of flu vaccine is “tried and true” and will probably remain the dominant method for years to come.

“If it weren’t for the egg-based process, we wouldn’t be able to respond to this pandemic,” she said.

More than 30 farms in the eastern United States are under long-term contract to provide eggs for vaccines, tending 9 million to 12 million chickens.

Once the fertilized eggs arrive at the vaccine plant, the flu virus is injected into them and allowed to multiply for several days. Then the eggshells are cracked; the virus-laden fluid is extracted, the flu virus is killed and the substance is purified. The inactivated strain is tested to determine purity, potency and yield.

From start to finish, the process takes about six months. In normal years, that is usually enough time to get the vaccine to anyone who wants it. But in an all-out epidemic, egg-based production is incapable of producing huge batches quickly.

The government has awarded a $487 million contract to Novartis for a plant in North Carolina that will make flu vaccine by growing the virus inside animal cells, preferably from mammals. The plant is expected to be up and running by 2011 or 2012.

Also, Protein Sciences Corp. of Meriden, Conn., landed a five-year, $147 million contract to develop a vaccine using its recombinant technology — flu proteins grown in insect cells. The hope is that the first doses would be available within 12 weeks of the beginning of a pandemic. That is about twice as fast as flu vaccine produced from eggs.

“I think you’re going to see these new technologies come on board rapidly, especially given what’s happened this year,” said Paul Radspinner, president and chief executive of FluGen Inc., a Madison, Wis., company working on several new vaccine technologies of its own.