Last month Greg Walden caught the H1H1 (“swine”) flu, and he wasn’t happy about it. He also isn’t happy about the way the government handled the swine flu epidemic.
Yesterday the 2nd District Republican grilled federal officials in front of a House committee on why there’s a shortage of swine flu vaccine after the government earlier said there’d be plenty.
“We had testimony Sept. 15 from [Health and Human Services] Secretary [Kathleen] Sebelius and everything seemed to be on track and fine,” Walden asked HHS Assistant Secretary Nicole Laurie. “So, explain – who, did the manufacturers, weren’t they straight with you? What’s this rosy picture piece?” (See Walden’s question and Laurie’s response here)
It’s a good question, and a fair one. But if Walden really wants to get to the bottom of the swine flu vaccine mess he should haul a few drug company CEOs in front of his committee and ask them some pertinent questions.
Especially: “Why are you still using an antiquated technology to produce flu vaccine?”
The present method for making flu vaccine – growing the virus in chicken eggs – is the same that was used in the 1950s. A faster method is available: growing the virus in cultures of mammalian cells. Using that technology it’s possible to produce vaccine by the vat instead of a pint at a time.
Yet the federal Food and Drug Administration is just now getting around to approving the first cell-cultured flu vaccine for the American market – and that vaccine is for the regular seasonal flu, not swine flu.
Way back in April, the New York Times foresaw there wouldn’t be enough vaccine to deal with the coming H1N1 pandemic because of reliance on the time-consuming and archaic chicken-egg method. It noted that the federal government had awarded “$1.3 billion, spread among several manufacturers, to develop ways of producing the vaccine in vats of animal cells rather than in eggs. … The results so far have been mixed. Solvay, which was awarded the biggest federal grant, nearly $300 million, decided it was economically too risky to build a flu vaccine plant in the United States.”
Only one flu vaccine manufacturer, Novartis, so far has committed to building a cell-culture plant in the US. “The federal government is providing nearly $500 million in construction costs and guaranteed vaccine purchases,” the Times noted.
The drug makers are dragging their feet for the usual reason – money. Flu vaccine isn’t a high-profit item, and every year you have to gear up to produce one for a different flu strain. From the bottom-line standpoint, it makes more sense to invest in new drugs to cure erectile dysfunction than in new technologies that could stop a flu pandemic.
The swine flu snafu has conservatives asking, “If the government can’t even run a vaccination program, how can it run the health care system?” To me, it raises another question: “Does it make sense anymore to have a health care system that’s driven by the profit motive?”
This article appears in Nov 19-25, 2009.
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Pandemic, what pandemic? Check the numbers, Bruce. This is as mild as it gets for flu,dispite all the hoopla!
Obviously you’re not an epidemiologist, Richard, as it has nothing to do with the numbers of dead. It’s a pandemic because of the fact that the virus mutated unpredictably and spread across the globe in a matter of weeks. As a result, we were left with virtually no defense. It’s an accident of biology that tens of thousands were NOT killed. In some ways were probably lucky that the swine flu struck and struck the way it did. It was essentially a wake up call for politicians and public health officials.
A pandemic is a worldwide epidemic. The deadliness or mildness of the disease isn’t relevant. A flu pandemic comes along roughly every 20-30 years.
If we experienced a pandemic of a flu virus as lethal as the 1918 one we would have tens of millions dead — maybe hundreds.
This is rediculous. Eat well, wash you hands often, avoid crowds when possible and get plenty of rest. Enough with all these Vaccines. Did you know that many doctors as well as nurses are refusing to get the vaccine as well as refusing to let their children and families get it. Vaccines are not proven and definately NOT safe. THE END !
Smart Nurse: First off, I would expect a smart nurse to know how to spell “ridiculous” and “definitely.”
“Did you know that many doctors as well as nurses are refusing to get the vaccine as well as refusing to let their children and families get it.”
No, I didn’t know that. What’s the source of your information?
“Vaccines are not proven and definately NOT safe.”
“Not proven”? You mean they don’t work? Smallpox vaccine doesn’t work? Polio vaccine doesn’t work? Tetanus and diphtheria vaccines don’t work?
Do you have any idea how many millions of people were killed by these diseases before the development of vaccines against them?
Your advice — “eat well, wash you [sic] hands often, avoid crowds and get plenty of rest” — is exactly the same as health authorities gave people during the 1918-1919 flu pandemic. It wasn’t effective then and it isn’t effective now.
As for the vaccine being “not safe,” again, where’s your evidence? I am not aware of ONE SINGLE CASE, worldwide, of a person being killed by the H1N1 vaccine, but thousands have been killed by the H1N1 flu.
“Smart nurse” my ass — you’re a scientific ignoramus spreading misinformation.
Ron Bergundy: Thank you. It’s a pleasure to read an intelligent comment here once in a while.