A nation battling swine flu, and short vaccine supplies

Earlier in October, the government was forced to announce that only about 28 million doses of swine flu vaccination would be available by the end of the month, about 30% below the 40 million it had previously predicted. Since the outbreak of the H1N1 swine flu occurred in April, federal projections have been consistently overoptimistic and have had to be ratcheted down several times, the New York Times reports. As recently as late July, the government was predicting having 160 million doses by this month. The reasons for the receding estimates start with the fact that the H1N1 virus is not growing as fast as expected in the eggs used to produce vaccine.