Federal Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq is reported to have blamed GlaxoSmithKline Inc., the H1N1 vaccine producer, "along with the panic," for the supply shortage that's already gripping the country after only one week.

I prefer to blame the minister for not having considered all the factors that should have been taken into account in the planning.

Remember, it's the federal planning that filters down through the provinces to the local public health units.

Based on an interview with Wellington Dufferin-Guelph health unit (WDG) last week, two fallacious assumptions in planning stand out: first, that the number of people seeking vaccination could be related to the number vaccinated for seasonal flu at past clinics; secondly, that people generally would respect the greater needs of the high-priority categories.

Both assumptions overlook the significance of the panic factor. The minister and her departmental "experts" might have been better advised to have consulted an advertising agency in an effort to determine what demand to expect for the vaccine.

The next factor to be considered would be how much of the demand could realistically be expected to be met quickly, given that production had barely been started.

As there couldn't possibly have been an immediate supply available to meet panic demands, it should have been up to the government to ensure that the greatest needs were met first.

The priority list, simply stated, would be: Those who need to have the vaccine; those who should have it; and those who could have it.

Okay, it had been known for several months — based in part on southern hemisphere experience with H1N1 — that the top priority should be pregnant women and young children over 6 months of age.

WDG outlines the priorities on its website www.wdghu.org. The WDG's voluntary priorities reflect what the U.S. Centre for Disease Control and the World Health Organization had been saying for several months before we heard a public peep from the Canadian health authorities.

The federal minister and GlaxoSmith- Kline should have taken into account that pregnant women needed to be treated ahead of all others, and planned production of the vaccine accordingly. Instead, production began with the adjuvant-added vaccine for the general population, and that was interrupted to produce the stuff without adjuvant, based on a suspicion that it would have fewer side effects.

I think every pregnant woman had a doctor of some kind. Would it not have made sense for those doctors to have been provided with the adjuvant-free vaccine prior to making the stronger stuff available to the general public? And, in that vein, would it not be better to have the women treated by their physicians, rather than stampeded to clinics?

Let's consider the voluntary nature of the clinics. It's fine and dandy in one sense that no one apparently is to be forced to take the vaccine, yet the other side of the coin has the ominous image of some children dying because their parents refused to let them be vaccinated — or because there was no vaccine for them as supplies dwindled as a panic-stricken lower-risk public got there first.

Call me crass, cold-hearted, or throw in a bit of profanity if you will, but I was horrified to view the long queue of lowrisk adults standing for hours in line ahead of some high-risk children and possibly pregnant women when the Orangeville clinic opened this week.

What in blazes were the low-risk adults doing there? And what were high-risk children doing standing among potentially already infected adults at a public health clinic?

If the priorities are valid, they cannot be voluntary. The authorities should have taken charge of the possible emergency and supplied physicians with vaccine for pregnant women and pre-school children, and public health nurses should have been sent to the schools with vaccine for the children there.

They used to do it that way. Why not now?

And a word on supply: Faced with a pandemic panic, what kind of logic did the federal government apply to its decision to single-source the vaccine?

Just for a moment, because it is that time of year, consider what would have happened in 1939-45 if our government had decided to single-source all the tools of war.

In a sense, we are in a war against the pandemic H1N1 virus. I believe we shall win this war — but only if the health authorities at all levels wake up with clear heads, consider all the factors involved in the fray, and readjust their planning to reflect reality.