Childhood vaccine finance and safety issues.

The U.S. national immunization system has been extraordinarily successful. But financing of vaccines is fragmented, and the supply of vaccines has become unreliable. Growing public concern about vaccine safety places additional stress on this system. Because vaccines are given to healthy children, adverse events can be particularly troubling. But excessive public concern can negatively affect vaccine supply and delivery by complicating the job of immunizing children and reducing the incentive to produce vaccines. This paper explores a range of vaccine financing and safety issues-and the linkages between them-and considers recent Institute of Medicine studies and recommendations.