U.S. Failed to Help in Epidemic, Doctor Says : Measles: County officials were unable to get federal assistance during the outbreak that claimed more than 40 lives in the Southland, she testifies.

WASHINGTON —  A Los Angeles County health official Thursday told a Senate panel that her office was unable to get needed federal help during the measles epidemic that has claimed more than 40 lives in Southern California.

The official, Dr. Shirley Fannin of the county Department of Health Services, added that the Bush Administration’s recent request for a $40-million increase in funding for public vaccination programs is inadequate to head off future outbreaks of childhood illnesses.

An Administration health official did not respond directly to Fannin’s criticisms of the federal response to the measles epidemic, but defended the President’s budget request.

“Essentially, the Administration feels the supply of vaccine is not at issue,” said Public Health Service spokesman Bill Grigg. “Forty million dollars (in new funds) will be sufficient for the goal of immunizing our children.”

Fannin, deputy director of the county department, testified before a Senate Appropriations Committee panel considering the Bush Administration’s funding request for the children’s immunization program. The Administration has asked that the federal budget for the program be raised from $217.5 million to $257.8 million.

The 10-year-old program, administered by the Centers for Disease Control, includes a variety of government efforts to vaccinate children against measles, influenza, hepatitis B, rubella, mumps and other illnesses.

Fannin told the Senate Appropriations subcommittee that Southern California’s measles outbreak, which began in 1988, might not have been so severe in Los Angeles County had federal officials paid more attention to the outbreak in its early stages and had they responded to requests for emergency funding and extra supplies of measles vaccine.

Fannin said resources were stretched so thin that infants and children who were dependent on the county’s public health care were not given a second round of measles inoculations, despite a September, 1989, federal recommendation that all children be vaccinated twice.

The result is that no more than 60% of infants and children usually seen by doctors at the county’s 25 medical clinics have received the recommended immunizations, she said.

As of March, 6,387 cases of measles had been reported in Los Angeles County since 1988. One-third of the victims were hospitalized and 37 died.

Nearly 1,500 people got the illness in Orange County, as did hundreds more in San Bernardino and other parts of Southern California, according to state health officials. Four Orange County residents and two people in San Bernardino died after contracting measles.

Nationwide, 27,000 measles cases and 89 deaths have been traced to the epidemic.

In her testimony to the Senate panel, Fannin lambasted Bush’s recent proposal that “Swat Teams” composed of Health and Human Services Secretary Louis W. Sullivan, Surgeon General Antonia Novello and other ranking health officials travel to six cities to promote childhood immunizations.

“It would be a great deal less expensive if Congress would give us money directly to hire our own staffs to apply the remedies we need,” she said. “What is found in Chicago is not necessarily what will be found in Los Angeles.”