Vaccines as Biological Weapons? Live Avian Flu Virus Placed in Baxter Vaccine Materials Sent to 18 Countries

News Canada
Baxter: Product contained live bird flu virus
By Helen Branswell, THE CANADIAN PRESS

Last Updated: 27th February 2009, 3:26pm

The company that released contaminated flu virus material from a plant in Austria confirmed Friday that the experimental product contained live H5N1 avian flu viruses.

And an official of the World Health Organization’s European operation said the body is closely monitoring the investigation into the events that took place at Baxter International’s research facility in Orth-Donau, Austria.

“At this juncture we are confident in saying that public health and occupational risk is minimal at present,” medical officer Roberta Andraghetti said from Copenhagen, Denmark.

“But what remains unanswered are the circumstances surrounding the incident in the Baxter facility in Orth-Donau.”

The contaminated product, a mix of H3N2 seasonal flu viruses and unlabelled H5N1 viruses, was supplied to an Austrian research company. The Austrian firm, Avir Green Hills Biotechnology, then sent portions of it to sub-contractors in the Czech Republic, Slovenia and Germany.

The contamination incident, which is being investigated by the four European countries, came to light when the subcontractor in the Czech Republic inoculated ferrets with the product and they died. Ferrets shouldn’t die from exposure to human H3N2 flu viruses.

Public health authorities concerned about what has been described as a “serious error” on Baxter’s part have assumed the death of the ferrets meant the H5N1 virus in the product was live. But the company, Baxter International Inc., has been parsimonious about the amount of information it has released about the event.

On Friday, the company’s director of global bioscience communications confirmed what scientists have suspected.

“It was live,” Christopher Bona said in an email.

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Kein Vogelgrippefall in Wien =
Wien (OTS) - Am vergangenen Montag wurden im Wiener
Otto-Wagner-Spital 18 MitarbeiterInnen eines externen Unternehmens
ambulant behandelt, da vorerst nicht ausgeschlossen werden konnte,
dass sie im Rahmen ihrer Arbeit mit einem Vogelgrippe-Erreger in
Kontakt gekommen seien. Bei keinem der umfassenden Tests wurde eine
Infektion festgestellt.****

Darüber hinaus wurden die PatientInnen umgehend mit einer
Grippe-Vorsorge behandelt. "Weder für die Patientinnen und Patienten
noch für Personen, die mit ihnen in Kontakt waren, bestand eine
Gefährdung. Selbstverständlich haben wir aber alle zuständigen
Behörden informiert", erklärte Dr.in Susanne Drapalik von der
Generaldirektion der Spitäler der Stadt Wien. (Schluss) cl

Rückfragehinweis:


PID-Rathauskorrespondenz:
www.wien.at/vtx/vtx-rk-xlink/
Wiener Krankenanstaltenverbund/Presse
Conny Lindner
Telefon: 01 404 09-70054
E-Mail: cornelia.lindner@wienkav.at

Austria, Germany, Slowenia and the Czech Republic - these are the countries in which labs were hit with dangerous viruses. Not by bioterrorist commandos, but by Baxter.

By Crystal Phend, Staff Writer, MedPage Today
Published: December 03, 2008
Reviewed by Zalman S. Agus, MD; Emeritus Professor
University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine.

ATLANTA, Dec. 3 -- Contaminated heparin has been confirmed in a case-control study by the CDC as the cause of hundreds of allergic reactions, some fatal, over the past year, researchers said.

In the first published account of the much-publicized investigation of the then-mysterious tainted heparin, which was finally traced to oversulfated chondroitin sulfate in raw material from China, CDC researchers said all 21 dialysis facilities that reported allergic-type reactions used heparin manufactured by Baxter Healthcare.
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These allergic reactions uncharacteristic of heparin-- hypotension, nausea, and shortness of breath occurring within 30 minutes of administration -- first surfaced late last year.


By April, the culprit compound had been traced to contamination of crude heparin at manufacturing plants in China leading to mass recalls in the U.S. and five other countries. (See: Heparin Recall Tally Spreads to Six Countries and How Tainted Heparin Slipped Through U.S. Safety Net)


However, final proof of a cause-and-effect relationship was missing, commented Susanne Alban, Ph.D., and Susanne Lühn, Pharm.D., both of Christian-Albrechts University Kiel in Kiel, Germany, in an accompanying correspondence piece in which they reported a new method for contamination testing.

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Bloomberg.com: ScienceFeb 24, 2009 ... 24 (Bloomberg) -- Baxter International Inc. in Austria unintentionally contaminated samples with the bird flu virus that were used in ...
www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601124&sid=aiqmSoL6sVbk&refer=home -