SCI/TECH: Flu Shot Shortage, page 1

This year's round of flu shots for the United States may be reduced by half. Apparently, a US drug maker recently lost operating rights under a license granted to them by British health officials, and an estimated 48 million doses will not be shipped to the States this year.

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I see two issues here. First is that of drug licensing and it's use to generate massive amounts of royalty income (or limit royalty income through stingy licenses). This is a classic supply and demand scenario. By limiting the number of operating licensees against a particular drug, you are limiting the amount of the drug (or vaccine in this case) that can be produced. Less drug...more money for it. If the desire was to protect the overall health of humanity, drug companies would manufacture vaccines as a loss leader with their cholesterol reducing, hair loss, male enhancement, and weight loss drugs making the lion's share of profit for them.

Second, is the more fringe, conspiracy-style issue of flu shots all together. Why is it that the human immune system could handle (for the most part) the flu for years and now we need to be vaccinated against it? I'm not saying that there haven't been massive influenza outbreaks in the past...I'm just saying that even though hearts are broken and no one wants to lose a member of their family, culling our overblown human population on this planet actually is good for overall health. This just seems like a big money making scam to me. If you add in the fact that last year's flu shot was for the wrong influenza strain (a mistake which will likely be repeated many times into the future) and folks still bought it thinking it would help, it just gets too wierd.

1) Start making flu shots when none were needed in the past.

2) Engage in a hard-core marketing campaign to promote stories concerning flu outbreaks worldwide to create the perception of a problem.

3) Fill the media with warm, fuzzy stories about folks who didn't get sick last year because of the flu shot (don't mention the fact that lots of people don't get sick every year even w/o flu shots).

4) Freak everyone out by issuing an 'incorrect' vaccine not geared toward the strain which is circulating.

5) Follow that up by intentionally screwing up the supply chain of flu vaccine, ensuring that few, if any, get flu shots in a following year.

6) Sell for a massive premium...indoctrinate the public to believe that since you didn't have enough last year, they MUST get shots this year.

7) Propogate the myth right until some entrepreneuring virologist decides to write a scathing article two decades later lambasting the drug syndicates for creating an environment of fear for the purpose of selling a useless vaccine.

Guess who's not getting a flu shot this year? Yep, that'll be me. Gosh, I hope I don't die of influenza this year!


[edit on 5-10-2004 by Banshee]

Originally posted by chaosrain
By limiting the number of operating licensees against a particular drug, you are limiting the amount of the drug (or vaccine in this case) that can be produced.

Well, yes... but no. It's also a patent issue. The company that develops a drug has the right to manufacture that for a certain number of years. However, they don't have a stranglehold on it and after a certain time period this protection vanishes and any company can manufacture it.

Why is it that the human immune system could handle (for the most part) the flu for years and now we need to be vaccinated against it?

It couldn't. In the early part of last century, flu pandemics killed millions worldwide. We have some protection because of our health care systems, but overall this is nasty stuff. Flu can also lead to pneumonia, which is a leading cause of death in the very young, the very old, and the immune compromised.

Since we got the vaccines, the number of deaths among the vaccinated has gone down. Here on ATS, people usually shriek about Ebola or other relatively rare conditons and manage to completely ignore the death toll from flu/pneumonia. Here in the US we average about 36,000 deaths yearly from influenza:
www.cdc.gov...

I'm not saying that there haven't been massive influenza outbreaks in the past...I'm just saying that even though hearts are broken and no one wants to lose a member of their family, culling our overblown human population on this planet actually is good for overall health.

One person who's a member of a board I frequent lost her little boy to influenza because she didn't believe in getting shots. I don't know that as a mom, I could take "well, it was culling the overblown human population of the planet. Thank you for playing" as a comfort, y'know? Each one of those overblown humans was loved by someone.

Guess who's not getting a flu shot this year? Yep, that'll be me. Gosh, I hope I don't die of influenza this year!

You probably won't. You're young and healthy. My husband, with diabetes and chronic heart problems bordering on heart failure and a touch of asthma can NOT afford to get the flu. The last time he had it, the cough persisted (as it did with my parents) for four months -- as did the feelings of exhaustion.

I'll be foregoing my flu shot this year (I'm relatively healthy) until vaccines are in better supply. But I will get one. I come into contact with many people (including the elderly) and I really don't want to spread it.

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