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Still too hard

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SUNCOAST NEWS

Published: October 24, 2009

Updated: 10/27/2009 07:22 am

As people are once again learning, producing vaccines against influenza viruses is not an easy thing. Back in 2004, many will recall, there was a shortage of vaccine for what we have come to call the "seasonal" flu. One of only two pharmaceutical companies still making vaccine at the time had to shut down its production facility in England because of contamination problems.

The fear of being sued over supposed vaccine side effects and the specter of spending millions and millions of dollars creating vaccine no one would buy because the flu season turned out to be milder than forecast and couldn't be used next flu season had forced most of the other drug companies out of the business back then.

Since 2004, efforts to coax companies back into vaccine production have born some fruit. Unfortunately, the production of vaccine against the H1N1 swine flu virus is well behind schedule. The resulting shortage has prompted some public agencies, such as the Pinellas County Health Department, to stop inoculating everyone except those deemed to be at the highest danger from swine flu until the vaccine supply catches up with the demand.

Making swine flu vaccine along with seasonal vaccine, which targets what experts decide will be the season's three most prevalent flu viruses, is contributing to the swine flu vaccine delay. In reality, we may be stuck with supply problems until researchers can figure out a way to reliably kill flu viruses, regardless of what strain they might be. That would make things a lot simpler.

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