The vaccine screw-up Where are all those promised H1N1 doses?

[still_one]

"If you can’t find any swine flu vaccine for your kids, it won’t be for a lack of positive thinking. In fact, the whole flu snafu is being blamed on “undue optimism” on the part of both the Obama administration and Big Pharma."




http://archives.chicagotribune.com/2009/nov/06/opinion/chi-oped1106vaccinenov06

[Robb]

1. Good article, but one big flaw:

She argues cell culture production methods would've delivered more vaccine, faster. But that manufacturing process hasn't been approved, so there would have to be much more in the way of trials before the drug could be distributed.

The only reason we have any vaccine out there at this point is because the companies who make the annual flu shot used the same method to produce the H1N1 shot, only with a change in virus strain. Because of this they were able to stand on the shoulders of many years of testing and approvals underneath their collective belts.

[still_one]

3. They also stopped production of the annual flu shot to make H1N1, which now has resulted in a

shortage of both

[SidDithers]

2. The US should have used an adjuvanted vaccine...

The adjuvanted vaccine uses only 3.75 ug of antigen per dose, while the unadjuvanted vaccine contains 15 ug. With the adjuvant, the US could have produced, and made available, 4 times as many doses.

Sid

[laundry_queen]

4. That definitely would have made a difference.

The adjuvanted vaccine is the main one here in Canada and probably the reason there's enough vaccine now. I took my kids yesterday and the longest part was the 15 minutes after to make sure there's no allergic reaction. Everyone in my family is now vaccinated, except my oldest daughter who was extremely sick with what we're pretty sure was h1n1. She came down with it the same week we received a letter from school stating numerous kids had tested positive for H1N1, and her symptoms were extremely consistant w/H1N1 so we decided she didn't need the vaccine. But from what the nurses said they have more than enough now.