US DHS chief deplores vacc "over-regulation"

The USA's Homeland Security Secretary, Michael Chertoff, speaking to a gathering of the National Chemical Security Forum in Washington DC, warned of over-regulation in the drive for security, citing the pharmaceutical industry as an example.

Mr Chertoff said: "if you look at what's happened to our pharmaceutical industry and our ability to produce vaccines, we're now in a pretty tough situation, where we're trying to produce vaccines against what could be very, very serious illnesses, and we don't have the production capacity in this country to do it."

He added: "one of the reasons is because the issue of liability is so overwhelmed, the ability to have sensible rules, that rational actors say, 'I don't want to play anymore because I can't get consistent guidance'."