On the vaccine front, France has run into some difficulties in its attempts to cancel millions of orders of H1N1 vaccines with drugmakers, Agence France-Presse reports. "France earlier this month moved to cancel purchases of 50 million swine flu vaccines after ordering far more than needed, but was confident at the time that it would not have to compensate the big companies that provide them," the news service writes. "But the negotiations with the British drug firm GlaxoSmithKline, Sanofi of France and Novartis of Switzerland are 'extraordinarily tough,' [French Health Minister] Roselyne Bachelot, told Europe 1 radio station on Friday" (1/22).

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