New York Times Friday April 2, 1993 (printed in the San Jose Mercury News) WASHINGTON- Drug company executives said Thursday that they might slow or stop development of new vaccines if the Clinton administration goes ahead with its plan to have government buy vaccines for all children. The comments came as Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala announced at a news conference that the government intended to go ahead with a plan to buy vaccines for all American children, and to seek out those who are not immunized. The $1.1 billion administration plan is intended to encure that all children are fully immunized by age 2. Dr. Ronald Saldarini, president of Lederle-Praxis Biologicals, a division of the American Cyanamid Co. and the largest preducer of vaccines in the United Stats, said Thursday he feared that if the government became the sole purchaser of vaccines, which it now buys at a discount, the result would be an overall lowering of their price. Lederle-Praxis is developing several new vaccines, Saldarini said, including one for herpes, one for childhood ear infections, or otitis media, and one for infant diarrhea caused by rotoviruses, a major killer in most of the world. "The development of these vaccines will be slowed or abandoned," he said, if the administration's plan goes forward and prices are cut more than the company wishes. Dr. R. Gordon Douglas, president of the vaccine division of Merk & Co., said the government not only pays a lower price but is also an unreliable buyer. "The government gets interested in vaccines when there is an epidemic," he said, citing the measles outbreak of 1989-'91. "Then their interest wanes, and comes back only when there is another epidemic." Both Douglas and Saldarini said they would carry the battle to Congress. Under the new plan, the federal government would buy all vaccines for about $1 billion a year, and then turn them over to state and local clinics and doctors' offices to be given out free. The campaign would begin in 1994 and 1995. A SHOT IN THE ARM FOR ALL CHILDREN (source: Centers for Disease Control) Estimates of percent of children under 2 years who were fully vaccinated, 1991: All Children: 37% to 56% Inner-city Children: 10% to 42% Price of vaccines only for a full series of shots, 1982 and 1992: Public Clinics: 1982: $6.69 1992: $129.00 Private Physicians: 1982: $23.29 1992: $244.00 According to public health officials, children should receive 80% of these immunizations in their first two years: DPT: Diptheria, pertussis (whooping cough), tetanus Polio MMR: Measles, mumps, and rubella (German measles) Hemophilus B influenza (Hib disease) Hepatitis B What the bill contains: Government-purchased vaccines for public clinics and private physicians' offices; parents taking their children to a private doctor will have to pay the doctors' fee, but not the cost of vaccines. State-based national tracking program to boost falling immunization rates.