SCI/TECH: Flu Shot Shortage

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]

I haven't gotte na flu shot for a few years now. I probaly won't get one this yerar either. I haven't had the flu in like 3 or 4 years.

The last time I got a flu shot was in 1990 (mandatory in the USAF).
The last time I had the flu was in 1990.

I view the flu shot like putting a bandaid on your knee before you skin it, how do you know your not going to skin the other one? .... or your elbows?

I'm all for preventative maintenence, but not when it creates new problems, and especially not when you have no idea what you are trying to prevent.

-Scott

wtf...there is a flu shot shortage every friggen year....if id slack this much at my job id be buying food with food stamps

i grew up poor and on food stamps so no welfare hero comments please.

[edit on 6-10-2004 by kessel]

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.


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...



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.



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.

You're right, influenza can be deadly. It always amuses me when people walking around at work say they have the 'flu' when what they have is a fever, sniffles, sneezing, and some aches - a cold. Flu knocks you on your a$s and walking around is usually not an option. I ended up in the emergency room one night with the flu after the little men I was seeing dancing on the rafters turned mean and I finally mentioned them to someone else People seem to not take the flu very seriously.

I'll be lining up to have a shot (health care) because the risk of me contracting it is high, and I come in contact with many people with weakened immune systems who could be at risk from me should I contract it.

On a side note, there is a local company here in Northern VA who has made a nasal spray vaccine the past few years. They never did well because the vaccine is more expensive (about $50 a pop) than the usual flu shot. Their stock just went through the roof

My thoughts on this : flu shots are just another way to make money and B because scientists are working on 1918 flu strain the shortage is on purpose to kill of humans............ thats jsut my theory