vaccine by the middle of April. He described the new type of flu as milder than that which Australia had typically seen each year. Representative Charles Jones of Newcastle later in the month questioned Forbes why his home city's order had not been filled. Forbes revealed the export of 1 million doses to Britain earlier in the year but assured that the order "did not delay, or in any way hinder, [the Commonwealth Serum Laboratories'] capacity to fill Australian orders" and that there would be enough supply to meet expected demand. By this time, 1,755,000 doses had been released, and production continued its pace of 200,000 doses per week. Despite these assurances from Forbes, the Director General of the Department of Health William Refshauge sent a letter on 9 April to all doctors in the country asking them not to vaccinate healthy people until at-risk groups in the community have been inoculated. Forbes reported meeting with the Commonwealth Serum Laboratories commission to discuss how to speed up distribution of vaccine. Two days later, the director of CSL, W. R. Lane, dismissed criticism of the supply situation from the New South Wales branch of the Australian Medical Association as "a lot of nonsense". Contradicting the laboratories' more forceful marketing earlier in the year, he downplayed the likelihood of a serious epidemic but shared the expectation of 4 million doses distributed by the end of May, eight times as much as the average annual total distribution of 500,000 vaccine doses. On 22 April, Forbes testified in the House of Representatives regarding the vaccine situation. He reported 2.5 million doses had been produced by this time since February. When asked by Representative Theo Nicholls of South Australia to consider importing vaccine to alleviate the present shortage, Forbes noted that the country had already imported the 150,000 doses available. He lamented CSL's recent subjection to a "good deal of abuse" regarding the "temporary shortages" around the country, repeating the comparison between the present production effort and the country's average annual distribution of only 500,000 doses. That same day, N. F. Keith, president of the Victorian branch of the Pharmacy Guild, called on CSL to explain the situation surrounding vaccine supply to the public, which was putting pressure on chemists due to the lack of vaccines. On 25 April, it was reported that the Department of Health had reimported the remaining vaccine from the order