Expanding the Influenza Vaccination Season: A New Paradigm for Increasing Immunization Rates / Am J Medicine

Poland served as "faculty" for this little paper, whose goal was to push flu vaccinations beyond the end of flu season, helping to use up the oversupply:

Access to influenza vaccination is no longer constrained by problems in supply and distribution, as more manufacturers are providing more influenza vaccine to the US market than ever before. Vaccination throughout the entire influenza season, not just in the early months, is the only way to fully utilize the available vaccine and to meet the target vaccination levels established by the USPHS. High-risk patients make office visits on a regular basis throughout the influenza season but fail to receive the vaccine. Thus, healthcare providers are missing important opportunities to vaccinate millions of people, from October to May every year. To increase vaccination rates in at-risk patients, healthcare professionals should emphasize the need for vaccination throughout the influenza season.

Gregory A. Poland, MD, provided consulting advice and/or performed clinical research trials for Avianax, CSL Limited, GlaxoSmithKline, Merck & Co., Novavax, PowderMed, Protein Science, and Novartis Vaccines.

Poland's 2011 NEJM disclosure form indicated relationships with the following 24 companies:

Merck (chair of at least two Merck committees), Novavax, Protein Sciences, Wyeth, Novartis, GlxoSmithKline, CSL Biotherapies, CSL Limited, Dynavax, Powdermed, Emergent BioSolutions (anthrax vaccine), Theraclone Sciences, MedImmune LLC, Liquidia Technologies, Inc., PaxVax, Inc., EMD Serono, Inc., Haymarket Medical, Audio Digest Foundation, SciMed LLC, Pri-Med Institute, Discovery Institute of Medicine, American Medical Directors Association, Medscape CME and Pacific EMPRINTS.