Leavitt on the Vaccine Industry

On Meet the Press yesterday, Michael Leavitt said:

The bad news is we don't have the capacity to manufacture it in sufficient volume or in speed to do us the good that's necessary. And the reason is because we have allowed the vaccine manufacturing industry to diminish to a point they don't have the ability. We have to do nothing short of rebuild that industry, and that's a major part of the comprehensive plan with the president. ... I have met directly with all of the vaccine manufacturers, as has the president, and they basically made clear we need to do three things. The first is we need to resolve the issue of liability, and there are many ways to do that, but fundamentally we use statutes to limit the liability of the drug companies with adequate compensation, ultimately, that needs to be made for those who are hurt. The second thing is that we have to assure that we have regulatory flexibility. That is to say, when we're building these facilities, we need to go in with the FDA and help provide the adequate protection but do it in a streamlined and efficient way.And the third thing is that we have to assure that there's a market for the vaccines that are ultimately developed. The good news here is that not only are we preparing to deal with a pandemic vaccine, we can, for the first time in our history, take off the table the issue of the annual flu, which has been indicated takes 36,000 lives a year in this country, and we can do it at the same time we're creating capacity for pandemic.