LEWISTON — The Obama administration should have been more honest about the shortcomings of the H1N1 flu vaccine production process, says U.S. Sen. Susan Collins, ranking member of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.

Collins, whose committee has oversight of pandemic flu preparedness, said vaccine manufacturers told federal officials this summer that the vaccine production wasn’t growing as well as expected, but the administration “just kept giving these rosy predictions; they kept hoping that it was somehow going to come out.”

“You need to be a hard-eyed realist when things go wrong and admit this wasn’t what was expected and adapt your response,” she said in an interview Friday at her Lewiston office.

“Things are almost always going to go wrong in responding to catastrophes and I’m not critical of the fact that the manufacturing process didn’t turn out as well as expected,” she said. “But you don’t pretend everything’s OK. That’s what bothers me with the administration’s response.”

So far, there’s only enough H1N1 vaccine in Maine for 1 in 5 people in the high-risk groups, Collins said. Those groups include children, young adults and pregnant women.

“One reason this situation is frustrating to me is that lives literally are at stake,” she said. “A lot of times we talk about issues being life-and-death issues, but this one really is — and that’s why it matters.”

Collins said her heart goes out to the families of the two Mainers whose deaths have been attributed to the H1N1 flu.

“There’s probably going to be another wave in the spring, and so I don’t mean to say to people that they shouldn’t get vaccinated; they should, but the peak right now may be over before people can get the vaccine to protect them from this wave,” she said.

Collins criticized the Obama administration for not taking a stronger lead on making sure what little vaccine has been available was directed toward the priority groups. Those decisions were left up to local officials.

Praising Maine’s decision to use schools as clinics, Collins said other states didn’t have as much foresight.

“I do not understand decisions to allow large investment banks in New York, like Goldman Sachs, to receive vaccine before schools,” said Collins, adding that vaccines were also headed to Guantanamo detainees before Congress stepped in.

“Terrorists and tycoons should not receive vaccine before children,” she said. “From what I can tell, these were decisions that were made by state and local public health officials on how to get the vaccine out.”

Since the federal government is controlling all of the vaccine, it has an obligation to set priorities to ensure that high-risk populations got the earliest access, Collins said.

She directed her questions about prioritization and a revised schedule for vaccine availability to U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius during a recent Senate hearing and in a letter, Collins said, but she hasn’t received adequate responses.

“I’m just disappointed to not get real responses to my letter because this isn’t a political issue. This flu strikes people whether they are Democrats, Republicans or independents, and it particularly targets our young people, children and pregnant women,” she said. “We need to work together to ensure that we have a better approach.”

Collins said the administration has plenty of money to cope with the H1N1 flu pandemic. In 2005, Congress passed $7 billion for pandemic flu preparedness.

Her committee plans to hold a follow-up hearing in upcoming weeks to continue monitoring the situation, Collins said.

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