logo of Chiron's Fluvirin® flu vaccine
logo of Chiron's Fluvirin® flu vaccine
FluGate
When U.S. drug maker
Chiron's U.K. plant for the production of Fluvirin® flu vaccine experienced "sterility problems" and was shut down by the British Government on October 5, 2004, this precipitated, as did Hurricane Katrina almost a year later, incidents of the best in human behavior (as when people gave up their allotted vaccine to let those at higher risk use it), as well as the worse (as when a black market arose in flu vaccine, much of it counterfeit).
You can read all about this incident, which greatly reduced the number of doses of flu vaccine available to the U.S. market during the last flu season, in these
Etopia Media Medical News Network article published between October 5, 2004, and February 25, 2005.
Included among these articles is the story of how U.S. Representative from California Henry Waxman tried, and failed, to win the release of documents held by the Food & Drug Administration that he believed would shed useful light on the process by which the Chiron plant ended up being declared "contaminated" and needed to have its millions of doses of flu vaccine destroyed.
2-25-05: A Chiron retrospective (Etopia Media Medical News Network #57)
10-27-04: The Public Health Agency of Canada says its "ability to provide [flu vaccine] assistance is limited by US licensing requirements and the requirements of public programs in Canada"
10-26-04: The FDA replies, showing no one any stinking documents
10-26-04: California Congressmember Henry Waxman attempts to pry crucial "FluGate"™ documents loose from recalcitrant Food and Drug Administration in order to get the true and complete story of Bush Administration culpability in flu shot factory shutdown crisis
10-20-04: Physician survey shows that 95% of respondents consider the flu vaccine shortage to be a "crisis"; 37% fault Bush Administration's handling of that crisis
10-14-04: During final presidential debate, President Bush gets almost every fact wrong while discussing the current flu vaccine shortage, while forgetting that his Administration had previously blocked the importation of Canadian drugs on account of safety concerns
10-9-04: Flu Vaccine Fiasco, a Federal Board of Best Medical Practices, and a New Voting Assignment for the Already-Swamped Election Assistance Commission
10-6-04: Black market in flu vaccine emerges, endangering those at risk
10-6-04: Dr. Jonathan Fielding, Director of Public Health for Los Angeles County, asks low-risk county residents to give their high-risk neighbors priority access to limited supply of flu shots
10-5-04: Absent a reprieve from U.K.'s Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency, Chiron will destroy its inventory of flu vaccine, says its president, Howard Pien, after "Britain's FDA" suspends its license to manufacture Fluvirin®
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