Expert Q & A Vaccinations Battling Disease; People Battling
Vaccines By LAURIE TARKAN Dr. Paul Offit, a pediatrician and
chief of infectious diseases at the Children’s Hospital of
Philadelphia. Mike Mergen for The New York Times Q: A number of
new vaccines have recently rolled out. Have the big
pharmaceutical companies been reinvigorated to produce vaccines?
A: Yes. In 1955, there were 27 companies that made vaccines. In
the early ’80s, following a flood of litigation against vaccine
makers that we now know were false claims, there was a decrease
to about 18 companies. Now there are 5. Vaccines are not
traditionally big money makers. They’re given once or a few
times in one’s life, so they’re never going to be blockbusters.
But starting in 2000, a number of new vaccines were introduced
that had been in development for 15 to 20 years. What really
reinvigorated vaccines was Prevnar, the pneumococcal vaccine
that prevents against meningitis and ear infections. Here was
the first vaccine to cross the billion-doll