The Flu Shot Fiasco; The shortage has put millions into a panic. Spotty supply is the immediate problem. Caring for our country's public health is the bigger issue.(Cover Story)

Byline: Geoffrey Cowley (With Anne Underwood in New York, Debra Rosenberg in Washington, Karen Springen in Chicago, Jamie Reno in San Diego, Catharine Skipp in Miami, Emily Flynn in London, T. Trent Gegax with the Kerry campaign and Tamara Lipper with the Bush campaign)

If you needed a flu shot last week, southern California was not the place to find it. Three weeks into the great vaccine debacle of 2004, L.A.'s Cedars-Sinai Hospital was limping along on 10 percent of its usual supply. There was no flu vaccine at San Diego's Camp Pendleton Marine Corps base, and no word from the Pentagon on when or whether the facility's 60,000 personnel might finally get their shots. Across the border in Tijuana, meanwhile, Dr. Enrique Chacon was cheerfully administering freshly bottled Aventis Pasteur flu vaccine. There are no waiting lists at his well-scrubbed Grupo Pediatrico children's clinic, no restrictions on who can get a shot. And though many of Chacon's patients are locals, he stands ever ready to help a northerner in need. "Viruses cross borders without a visa," he says. "If there is influenza on one side, there will be influenza on the other. We need to vaccinate everyone."

If only we could. As recently as three weeks ago, health experts assumed that 100 million Americans would have access to flu shots this fall. That was before British authorities shut down a Liverpool production plant operated by the U.S. company Chiron. Overnight, the U.S. vaccine supply shrank by nearly half, prompting restrictions on access, a surge in demand and a mounting sense of panic among doctors, patients and parents.

Scalpers are now peddling scarce vaccine lots at 10 times the usual price. Hospitals are turning away old folks and cancer patients who could die from lack of a flu shot. And with the presidential campaign in its final weeks, both candidates are trying to sway voters on the issue. By President George W. Bush's account, the vaccine crisis is a reminder of the need for liability reform, but no…