FDA panel to vote on America’s first bird flu vaccine
Tomorrow, an expert panel of outside advisors will give their recommendation on a Sanofi-Aventis bird flu vaccine.
FDA experts to vote on America’s first bird flu vaccine - Feb. 23, 2007:
It will be interesting to see what comes out of this meeting. I still think that the concerns over bird flu are currently overstated. Many more will die this year from the standard flu than from bird flu.
As the article point out though, it is impossible to develop a precise vaccine against bird flu unless it actually mutates into a pandemic strain. It is a difficult decision to stockpile a vaccine that may likely do no good whatsoever. However, it is also unconscionable to do nothing. I think the best spending of money would be on technologies that get away from using chicken eggs to produce vaccines. The way the pharmaceutical industry produces vaccines has not changes in many, many years. If bird flu should become epidemic within the chicken population and not affect humans directly, it could still have a major impact on humans since ALL vaccines are made using chicken eggs. This would inhibit the ability to produce any other vaccines. These technologies, if they allowed rapid ramp up of production, could easily be used for other vaccines in the future.
Technorati Tags: bird flu, FDA, Sanofi-Aventis, vaccine
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