One of you asked what problems can come from the flu vaccine.....a LOT, mainly Gillian Barrie Syndrome....read the article..
The 1975 Swine Flu debacle
By Grattan Woodson, MD, FACP
The consequences to bureaucrats who needlessly warn the public about flu pandemics that fail to occur are seared into the US CDC’s institutional memory. In 1975 an American solder stationed in US died of influenza and an evaluation proved the organism responsible was H1N1 Swine Flu, a strain that was similar to the one that caused of the infamous 1918 Spanish Influenza that killed 80 million people worldwide.
CDC experts predicted a severe pandemic was possible and put on a big push to vaccinate the nation. At that time there were over 20 licensed influenza vaccine manufacturers in the US so it was relatively easy for them to significantly up production from their usual order of about 50 million doses to 150 million. President Ford put his prestige behind the vaccination campaign by inviting TV cameras into the oval office so the nation could watch him get his shot. Speeches and public service announces were made imploring one and all to get a flu shot.
Alas, the pandemic didn’t develop. After about 40 million Americans had been vaccinated, the campaign fizzled when their was a higher than usual incidence of serious but rare complication of vaccination, Gillian Barrie Syndrome. The political fallout was toxic. The public blamed the politicians who took it out on the CDC public health officials. It was a mess. Plaintiff’s attorneys sued the vaccine makers on behalf of those who were injured or dead due to Gillian Barrie Syndrome. The government refused to buy the unused 110 million doses of flu vaccine the manufacturers had made at the CDC’s request. The pharmaceutical industry soured on the flu vaccine business given the circumstances with many abandoning this aspect of their business.
These unfortunate events of the past are part of the reason we have been having flu vaccine shortages for the past few years and will not be able to make near enough bird flu vaccine to cope with a bird flu pandemic should the need arise. The first unforeseen consequence of the debacle has been the collapse of the nation’s flu vaccine manufacturing capacity. It never recovered from this disaster with all but one (Sanofi Pasteur) of the twenty companies in the US licensed to make vaccine then leaving the business by 2005. A second consequence affecting us today has been the lack of new money invested in research and development into new ways to manufacture flu vaccine. Only 1 company (MedImmune) has invested in this research resulting in a new attenuated live flu virus vaccine since 1975.
The lack of research and development explains why world flu vaccine production remains constrained by the use of a 50-year-old technique for flu vaccine production within fertilized chicken eggs. This method is inefficient and makes it difficult to increase production of larger quantities of vaccine. Since bird flu has an almost 100% fatality rate for poultry, there is even a chance that the hundreds of millions of fertilized chicken eggs needed for world flu vaccine production annually could be threatened. That’s a lot of eggs! Modern vaccines for hepatitis for instance are produced in cell cultures or grown in bacteria using recombinant DNA or RNA methods that allow for production to be scaled up to whatever quantity is required.
When pharmaceutical companies were asked recently why they left the flu vaccine business, the most common reason given was they were not able to make a sufficient return on their money to justify the investment. Some reasons for this included the fact that seasonal demand for influenza vaccine was unreliable often leaving them holding a large unsold inventory at the end of the year. The profit margin on flu vaccine was too low and the risk for significant malpractice litigation associated with the product too high for them to return to the business.
These concerns were addressed by the US Government recently when new legislation authorized the US Department of Health and Human Services to place orders for bird flu vaccine produced in the old fashioned way with a guarantee of payment to the manufacturers. Money was also authorized by the US Congress to fund research and development into new cell-culture based flu vaccine production methods. Contracts for these were announced in May 2006. For the first time, influenza vaccine manufacturers were also granted protect from malpractice lawsuits in the authorizing legislation.
The results of these actions by the US Government are very likely to revolutionize the way flu vaccine is manufactured and possibly even lead to marked reduction in the threat faced from both seasonal and pandemic flu in the future. The problem for us is these innovations will take at least several years before the fruit of this work becomes available; too late for this pandemic. For these actions to have been of benefit for us today, they would have had to been begun 5 years ago. Of course then, there was no urgency to act as there is today with the bird flu pandemic knocking on our door.
here you go...did it for you!!
One of you asked what problems can come from the flu vaccine.....a LOT, mainly Gillian Barrie Syndrome....read the article..
The 1975 Swine Flu debacle
By Grattan Woodson, MD, FACP
The consequences to bureaucrats who needlessly warn the public about flu pandemics that fail to occur are seared into the US CDC’s institutional memory. In 1975 an American solder stationed in US died of influenza and an evaluation proved the organism responsible was H1N1 Swine Flu, a strain that was similar to the one that caused of the infamous 1918 Spanish Influenza that killed 80 million people worldwide.
CDC experts predicted a severe pandemic was possible and put on a big push to vaccinate the nation. At that time there were over 20 licensed influenza vaccine manufacturers in the US so it was relatively easy for them to significantly up production from their usual order of about 50 million doses to 150 million. President Ford put his prestige behind the vaccination campaign by inviting TV cameras into the oval office so the nation could watch him get his shot. Speeches and public service announces were made imploring one and all to get a flu shot.
Alas, the pandemic didn’t develop. After about 40 million Americans had been vaccinated, the campaign fizzled when their was a higher than usual incidence of serious but rare complication of vaccination, Gillian Barrie Syndrome. The political fallout was toxic. The public blamed the politicians who took it out on the CDC public health officials. It was a mess. Plaintiff’s attorneys sued the vaccine makers on behalf of those who were injured or dead due to Gillian Barrie Syndrome. The government refused to buy the unused 110 million doses of flu vaccine the manufacturers had made at the CDC’s request. The pharmaceutical industry soured on the flu vaccine business given the circumstances with many abandoning this aspect of their business.
These unfortunate events of the past are part of the reason we have been having flu vaccine shortages for the past few years and will not be able to make near enough bird flu vaccine to cope with a bird flu pandemic should the need arise. The first unforeseen consequence of the debacle has been the collapse of the nation’s flu vaccine manufacturing capacity. It never recovered from this disaster with all but one (Sanofi Pasteur) of the twenty companies in the US licensed to make vaccine then leaving the business by 2005. A second consequence affecting us today has been the lack of new money invested in research and development into new ways to manufacture flu vaccine. Only 1 company (MedImmune) has invested in this research resulting in a new attenuated live flu virus vaccine since 1975.
The lack of research and development explains why world flu vaccine production remains constrained by the use of a 50-year-old technique for flu vaccine production within fertilized chicken eggs. This method is inefficient and makes it difficult to increase production of larger quantities of vaccine. Since bird flu has an almost 100% fatality rate for poultry, there is even a chance that the hundreds of millions of fertilized chicken eggs needed for world flu vaccine production annually could be threatened. That’s a lot of eggs! Modern vaccines for hepatitis for instance are produced in cell cultures or grown in bacteria using recombinant DNA or RNA methods that allow for production to be scaled up to whatever quantity is required.
When pharmaceutical companies were asked recently why they left the flu vaccine business, the most common reason given was they were not able to make a sufficient return on their money to justify the investment. Some reasons for this included the fact that seasonal demand for influenza vaccine was unreliable often leaving them holding a large unsold inventory at the end of the year. The profit margin on flu vaccine was too low and the risk for significant malpractice litigation associated with the product too high for them to return to the business.
These concerns were addressed by the US Government recently when new legislation authorized the US Department of Health and Human Services to place orders for bird flu vaccine produced in the old fashioned way with a guarantee of payment to the manufacturers. Money was also authorized by the US Congress to fund research and development into new cell-culture based flu vaccine production methods. Contracts for these were announced in May 2006. For the first time, influenza vaccine manufacturers were also granted protect from malpractice lawsuits in the authorizing legislation.
The results of these actions by the US Government are very likely to revolutionize the way flu vaccine is manufactured and possibly even lead to marked reduction in the threat faced from both seasonal and pandemic flu in the future. The problem for us is these innovations will take at least several years before the fruit of this work becomes available; too late for this pandemic. For these actions to have been of benefit for us today, they would have had to been begun 5 years ago. Of course then, there was no urgency to act as there is today with the bird flu pandemic knocking on our door.