NPR's Richard Knox evidently forgot to keep up with the happenings of the H1N1 flu vaccine before delivering his report Marketing Flu Vaccine: A Tough Sell For Many. Here is some impartiality for us:

The nation is in the midst of the largest mass vaccination campaign against flu in history, but about half the population is saying they are not interested.

Many have a sense that the vaccine was rushed to production, compromising safety. Some are convinced that it contains harmful chemicals.

Neither is right, federal officials say. But they are clearly worried about vaccine naysayers and skeptics.

Did you catch the "have a sense that the vaccine was rushed to production" line, as if this were simply a matter of fear mongering? Knox must not have read that the CDC approved emergency use of the vaccine in late October: FDA approves emergency use of new intravenous flu drug, peramivir. In case you don't know what "emergency use" means to the CDC, they define it on their website: Interim Questions and Answers About Emergency Use Authorization. Here is the first paragraph:

An Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) may be issued by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to allow either the use of an unapproved medical product or an unapproved use of an approved medical product during certain types of emergencies with specified agents.

It normally takes years for the CDC to approve any drug for use in the United States. The new swine flu (H1N1) pandemic occurred just this year, 2009. So there is good reason to "have a sense that the vaccine was rushed to production" because that is precisely what happened. But acknowledging this fact apparently makes us "naysayers and skeptics," which is another unbiased portrayal of the situation, of course.

I've not heard much concern about unsafe chemicals in the H1N1 vaccine so I question this news report about that aspect of the issue. But the general concerns over the vaccine's safety are being voiced for several reasons, not least of which is the fact that the drug was indeed rushed through the CDC's approval process via the Emergency Use Authorization.

Who are these federal officials Knox references for this report? They either don't know about the recent EUA or they do know and are lying about it. Why all the deception and this manipulative news story?

Please don't misunderstand, I don't oppose the use of vaccinations, but neither to I rabidly promote it. Richard Knox is clearly supporting the use of the H1N1 vaccine with this report, which seems consistent with the general massive media effort to promote health care "reform" legislation. It should be no surprise that even this rather uninteresting issue is being propagandized to further left wing efforts to achieve government run health care.