Flu vaccine question.............................

[CrownPrinceBandar]

In the last debate Bush mentioned that there were supply problems with influenza vaccines coming from the UK and Canadian suppliers, so much so that he encouraged healthy folks to give the vaccine a miss this year. My question is, is the vaccine from the foreign countries that * mentioned a supply to bolster our domestically produced vaccine supply, Or is the UK and CA our sole source? If the latter is the case, why don't we produce vaccines domestically?

[diamond14]

1. because USA Production would cost a few million dollars AND

that small investment in Americans' Healthcare would SAVE BILLIONS in hospitalizations, doctor visits and DEATH caused by the flu....bush* is NOT interested in spending even a tiny amount on American Citizens' Healthcare....for bush*, it's OK if everyone just DIES....(and it's for certain that bush* and his minions all got their flu shots, while we go without).....

[Cary]

2. It's not profitable enough,

and we don't subsidize the manufacturing of it.

Why make something with only a 20% profit margin when you can make drugs with 60% profit margins?

[muriel_volestrangler]

3. The other current flu vaccine for the USA comes from Pennsylvania

nothing comes (yet) from Canada. The Pa. plant is owned by a French company.

http://www.newsday.com/news/health/wire/sns-ap-glaxo-flu-vaccine,0,7616413.story?coll=sns-ap-health-headlines

When Fluarix was introduced in 1992, the United States had five to 10 vaccine manufacturers. That number has dwindled to two makers of injectible vaccines: Chiron, based in Emeryville, Ca., and Aventis Pasteur, a unit of France's Sanofi-Aventis S.A., which has a plant in Swiftwater.

[Warpy]

4. The dritiest secret about drugs and vaccines in the US

is that most are manufactured in the same countries the FDA screams are not safe for seior citizens to import their prescription medications from! We make very few of the average pharmacy's stock in the US.

Those "safe, FDA-approved" drugs are mostly foreign produced. It's not surprising that the flu vaccine was grown in the UK, Canada and France. It was the latter found to be contaminated with bacteria (probably salmonella, since it's grown in eggs) and pulled off the shelves. It was cheaper to pull it than it was to test every lot for contamination.

[CrownPrinceBandar]

6. Then why isn't this a bigger issue?......................

The hypocrisy on this issue is so blatant! We don't trust these foreign producers to supply our seniors with the affordable medications they need to live a healthy life, but getting flu vaccines (and a limited supply, to boot!) from these same producers is just fine.

If I was a bit more conspiratorial I would start bandying the term "eugenics" around.

[diamond14]

9. bush* hopes that most will DIE quietly....it'll be a slow-motion

unannounced eugenics.....the weakest among us WILL be dead before the winter ends....

who is speaking for the weak???? no one....it's just like Germany under hitler....it was OK to kill the people with physical disabilities...they were the FIRST that hitler killed...if only some one had spoken for those with disabilities.....

because after the people with disabilites are KILLED, then they come for the seniors, and the polical activists, and more...and FINALLY, they come for YOU !!!! and there is no one left to speak for you....

[Warpy]

10. Right, with so much of the US manufacturing and now office based

jobs offshore, too many US citizens are going to become superfluous, "useless eaters" in the words of the compassionate conservatives out there.

You can bet it won't be like the UK, where "redundant" workers during Mad Maggie Thatcher's reign had a subsistence dole and national health. They'll want us to free up all that housing and go die in the street, preferably alleys where they won't have to look at our corpses.

[TahitiNut]

12. Because it won't harm the WEALTHY, of course!

It's people in the "bottom 80%" who'll die.

[progressivebydesign]

8. I never realized the chicken connection..

..and the potential salmonella. Could explain why so often people become ill after getting the shot?

[Warpy]

11. No, bacterial contamination is rare

People get sick because they're getting the mildest case of the flu possible in order to achieve immunity to the bad one.

[barb162]

15. a lot of other dirty crap with the FDA, adverse vaccine reactions,

etc., and the public NEVER finds out about it.
I worked for a drug company several years ago and yes, there are LOTS of drugs being made overseas that are sold here. It is CRAZy what Bush is saying that US citizens can't buy drugs overseas (safety, you know) but the same companies are manufacturing them overseas (safety??) and selling them here at inflated prices.

[skygazer]

5. The drug companies would rather make erectile dysfunction drugs

They can make a lot more money off them. The government does nothing to encourage them to provide flu vaccines for the sake of public health. Ah, the good old free market system! Lots of people die but the large companies make money. And what's more important?

[Kellanved]

7. AFAIK there are only two companies with a license to produce the vaccine

A license for the US market that is.

Chiron, the one with the plant in Britain, can't deliver.
The German/French Aventis can only deliver about 54 million doses; half the demand.

The vaccine is only good for one season so no producer has stockpiles of it lying around (there is more money to be made with flu medications after all) and the normal way to make the vaccine is in (chicken-)eggs. So for a few million doses a whole lot of eggs and time is necessary.

[wishlist]

13. Bush misled by blaming shortage on fear of lawsuits-govt law protects

Bush's claim that fear of lawsuits can be blamed for companies not producing enough vaccine was very misleading. Congress passed a bill a few years ago preventing companies who produce vaccines from being held liable, unless they put them on the market knowing they are contaminated. In this case, the British would not allow the company to put the vaccine on the market because of contamination risk, but to suggest that tort reform could alleviate this situation is ridiculous.

[erniesam]

14. Shipped but not distributed?

In this case, Chiron employed the little-known quarantine process under which drugmakers can ship products to distributors before final safety tests are completed.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2004/10/07/MNG31952VC1.DTL

Weird, sorta of like shipping meat to stores before getting the results of mad cow tests.

[sam sarrha]

16. at Boeing we had a provisional engineering status where an obvious change

of the work instrunction was made that wouldnt effect the product other than and improvement was allow and production contenued, because they layed off so many engineers to save money it took FOREVER to get paper work changed, and the paper word would follow when it was done... always when it was just obvious.

otherwise they would have to layoff hundreds of people for weeks or months to get a simple paper word modification... only bedause of their incompetant management style.