
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, May 6, 1993                   TAG: 9305060181
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: The Washington Post
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Short

CLINTON CUTS BACK VACCINE PLAN

The Clinton administration has cut back sharply its controversial $1.1 billion-a-year plan to buy all the vaccines needed to immunize American children by the age of 2, administration and Capitol Hill sources said Wednesday.

Instead, under a compromise being worked out with leaders of relevant House and Senate committees, the federal government would purchase and distribute free only enough vaccine to assure immunization of all children who are on Medicaid or are uninsured. It would not provide free vaccine to insured children treated by their own doctors, as the administration originally had proposed on April 1.

The cost of the compromise measure is estimated at about $300 million a year.

Providing free vaccine to all children had been assailed by Sen. Nancy Landon Kassebaum, R-Kan., and other Republicans as costly and unnecessary.

Kassebaum dismissed the assertion that a shortage of vaccines caused low vaccination rates (estimated at 63 percent of all U.S. 2-year-olds). The real problem, she said, is that "too many parents do not know the value of immunizations, and those who do have a hard time finding accessible providers to deliver them." That view is shared by many health officials.

A congressional source said the biggest factor in causing the administration to pull back was fear that the $1.1 billion purchase program could not be passed because part of the money would be used to provide free vaccines to children in affluent, insured families.

by CNB