Vaccines for Children Program

[4] Upon investigation, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found that more than half of the children who had measles had not been immunized, despite seeing a health care provider.

[9] Due to the exponential impact of vaccination, it is difficult to separate the effect of the VFC from that of other state and federal immunization programs.

For example, it is difficult (or perhaps impossible) to disentangle the effects of the VFC program and the increase in public school vaccination requirements that occurred during the 1990s and 2000s.

[citation needed] The VFC program has also significantly helped close the vaccination rate gap between non-Hispanic whites and other racial groups.

[12] Vaccination programs like the VFC are expensive, but they also result in significant cost savings through prevented hospitalization and doctor visits.

Such large-scale purchases by the federal government are not without economic consequences; the VFC program is one factor contributing to the current deterioration of the U.S. vaccination market.

[13] The opportunity for large government contracts has led pharmaceutical companies to engage in such aggressive price competition that the market for vaccinations has all but collapsed.

The agencies then redistribute the vaccines at no cost to those private physicians' offices and public health clinics that are registered as VFC program providers.

The successful implementation of the VFC at the state-wide level thus requires the cooperation and coordination of several state and federal agencies, including: The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services; the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC); the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP); and the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), among others.

[11] The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) makes recommendations to the VFC program as to what are the most appropriate selection of vaccines and related agents for control of vaccine-preventable diseases in the civilian population of the United States.

These resolutions may not necessarily match the general usage recommendations of the ACIP, but rather represent the rules that providers must follow for administering each specific vaccine under the VFC program.

[11] The VFC program has implemented several regulations to address the changing needs of grantees: In attempts to address fraud and abuse, grantees must now submit a copy of the newly written fraud and abuse policy, which includes identification of staff responsible for these issues, to the CDC no later than December 31, 2007.