Bird Flu Vaccine Going Foul, page 1

posted on Nov, 18 2006 @ 12:37 PM

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All vaccines have a shelf life, and the first Bird Flu shots are reaching theirs. This has reduced the number of available vaccines by approximately one million. A significant amount, considering there were only four million available.

www.redorbit.com
The government is stockpiling antiflu medications and a small amount of H5N1 vaccine in case the bird flu or some other super-strain sparks the next influenza pandemic. Here's the rub: If such a super-flu began circulating, it would take several months to begin brewing vaccine that was an exact genetic match. But the hope is that if H5N1 were the culprit, health workers and certain other people at high risk might get some protection from shots made against earlier strains of that virus.

The first batches in the nation's stockpile were brewed using an H5N1 strain that circulated in 2004. Now, manufacturers are brewing vaccine using a newer strain that circulated in Indonesia last year. With that updated version, HHS expects to have enough shots for another 5 million people sometime next year.

Please visit the link provided for the complete story.

In my opinion, the panic surrounding Bird Flu is more by design rather than a true imminent threat. H5N1 has been around for a long time, and it has yet to mutate and spread human-to-human.

Regardless, if a pandemic were to spark, it is clear nobody is prepared for it. There's really only one thing we could do... Duck and Cover.

Related AboveTopSecret.com Discussion Threads:
The Feedlot Factor: First E. Coli, Now Bird Flu
Two New H5N1 Bird Flu Mutations Could Cause Faster Human Spread

soficrow

posted on Nov, 18 2006 @ 01:06 PM

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Good find.

All vaccines do lose potency, bu seems this one's life is unusually short.

Not that it makes much difference - reports say it doesn't work on the new strains anyway.

apc

posted on Nov, 18 2006 @ 06:46 PM

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Yup. If something were to happen, there's very few people that would receive a vaccine. The rest of us would just have to stay cooped up indoors, as few would make the pecking order. Who knows... a nuke fight could break out following the pandemic, and we wouldn't have to worry about it. We'd all be extra crispy!

(I kill myself... I really do.

)