Posted on 10/30/2005 1:56:47 PM PST by neverdem
Stepping up its preparations for a possible flu pandemic, the government has awarded a $62.5 million contract to the Chiron Corporation to manufacture millions of doses of a vaccine against the strain of bird flu that authorities fear.
The contract with Chiron, announced yesterday by Michael O. Leavitt, the secretary of health and human services, is the second one for the manufacture of large quantities of bulk vaccine that would be stored in a government stockpile.
Sanofi-Aventis received a $100 million contract in September and is expected to deliver its vaccine by the end of this year. Chiron, a biotechnology company based in Emeryville, Calif., is expected to deliver its vaccine in the first half of next year.
The two contracts together are likely to provide enough vaccine to protect several million people. The exact figure is not known because scientists do not yet know how large a dose will be needed for each person. A government spokesman said that under one assumption, the Chiron contract would provide for 12 million doses.
The Bush administration's current goal is to stockpile enough vaccine for 20 million people, as well as enough antiviral drugs, like Tamiflu, for another 20 million. The antiviral drugs would be used mainly to treat people once they get the disease while a vaccine would prevent the disease.
Both targets are expected to be higher in a new pandemic plan that the administration is expected to announce in the near future.
Public health authorities are worried that the H5N1 avian flu decimating birds in Asia and now spreading to birds in Europe could mutate into a form that would easily infect people.
If that new form is substantially different, however, then the vaccines being made under the two contracts might not work well.
Government officials say, however, that...
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Bush will give fake vaccines to those former low income New Orleans residents who managed to survice his dynamiting of the levees.
Hillary Clinton utterly destroyed the magnificent research-oriented US vaccine industry in 1993 with her horror show vaccine socialization law.
So now we have to go to a second rate foreign manufacturer pleading for help. For the 99.99% of US sheep, oops I meant people, there is no recollection that Chiron were the same foreign clowns that contaminated 65 million doses of flu vaccine we ordered from them 2 years ago.
My suggestion is to stock up on Tamiflu (75 mg in 10 packs) for prophylaxis, and to make sure your Will is in order. Hillary may yet murder you and your family, if the Avian Flu (30% mortality in humans) mutates into human to human transmission.
That's why I posted the story. I probably should have excerpted that part of the story for the folks that refuse to read anything at the NY Times' website.
Don't confuse vertebrae with the nerves of the central and peripheral nervous system.
Children with ADHD may need sleep
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FReepmail me if you want on or off my health and science ping list. Anyone can post any unrelated link as they see fit.
Imagine what she could do in another eight years in the oval office?
Isn't Chiron an American company with a plant in the UK?(the UK plant was the one that had the contaminated flu vaccine last year, but I believe the company HQ's are in the People's Republic of Kalifornia).
I did that very thing too
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