Why the Flu Shot Shortage..A DiamondInvestigation. Not On 60 Mins.

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diamond

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Why the shortage:

Almost half of the nation's flu vaccine will not be delivered this year.
Chiron, a major manufacturer of flu vaccine, will not be distributing
any influenza vaccine this flu season. Chiron was to make 46-48 million
doses vaccine for the United States. Chiron is a British company.. Recently
British health officials stopped Chiron from distributing and making the vaccine when inspectors found unsanitary conditions in the labs. Some lots of the vaccine were recalled and destroyed.

Why is our vaccine made in the UK and not the US?

The major pharmaceutical companies in the US provided almost 90% of the
nations flu vaccine at one time. They did this despite a very low profit
margin for the product. Basically, they were doing us a favor. In the
late 80's a man from North Carolina who had received the vaccine got the flu.
The strain he caught was one of the strains in that years vaccine made by a
US company. What did he do? He sued and he won. He was awarded almost $5 million! After that case was appealed and lost, most US pharmaceutical companies stopped making the vaccine. The liability out weighed the profit margin. Since UK and Canadian laws prohibit such frivolous law suits UK and Canadian companies began selling the vaccine in the US.

By the way...the lawyer that represented the man in the flu shot law
suit was a young attorney by the name of John Edwards.
John_edwards_133569a.jpg
 
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Yes, that's why there's a shortage. :eyebrow:

IMHO, the flu shot is completely useless for healthy people and there is no reason to administer it to anyone but the severly immunocompromised and the elderly.
 
but..
Kerry disagrees w you and claims Bush is a bastard for offering your same suggestion Ms. Anitram.

:)
db9
 
My mom sent me this forward, D. My sister works for a healthcare company. This is the email she sent back to Mom and I. And no jokes about how I'm not the only opinionated ranter in my family. ;)

"American companies don't make vaccines mainly because of low profit margins, and more importantly, the high chance of contamination. There is no reason for a company in a business with huge profit margins to make a drug that has a high chance of failure every year. it's smarter to put money into products that have a better chance to make it to market. Low margins are the same reasons that these vaccines are still produced by hand using chicken eggs instead of earmarking R&D resources to developing more stable biological cell delivery systems. to simplify the flu vaccine shortage to the point of saying one lawsuit did it in is irresponsible and ignores every other business factor that goes into decided whether to produce a drug or not."
 
diamond said:
but..
Kerry disagrees w you and claims Bush is a bastard for offering your same suggestion Ms. Anitram.

When did he call him a bastard?

Kerry is free to disagree with me in this regard, just like he'd disagree with me on the gay marriage issue. Neither of those change the fact that I'd rather stab myself in the spleen with a rusty fork than vote for Bush.
 
sharky said:
My mom sent me this forward, D. My sister works for a healthcare company. This is the email she sent back to Mom and I. And no jokes about how I'm not the only opinionated ranter in my family. ;)

"American companies don't make vaccines mainly because of low profit margins,

this was a long time ago in the 1980s sharky.

if you can prove this company was making huge profits w this vaccine THAT would be interesting.

more interesting is the lawyer who was involved and how it was ignored by the main stream media:)

db9
 
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This does bring up an interesting question, though.

Is it more important to protect the health of the citizens or for a private company to make a fortune? If they have low profit margins, they still have profit, and are not losing money on the production. It's open greed that's keeping them from producing the vaccine en masse.
 
anitram said:


When did he call him a bastard?

Kerry is free to disagree with me in this regard, just like he'd disagree with me on the gay marriage issue. Neither of those change the fact that I'd rather stab myself in the spleen with a rusty fork than vote for Bush.

"bastard" was my artistic freedom at work.
he implied gw was one through his condenscending commentary.

please put the knife down, you're canadian.

we're not worried about u voting here.:)

db9
 
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anitram said:
This does bring up an interesting question, though.

Is it more important to protect the health of the citizens or for a private company to make a fortune? If they have low profit margins, they still have profit, and are not losing money on the production. It's open greed that's keeping them from producing the vaccine en masse.
umm i will catch the flu for 5 million dollars:)
:up:
John_edwards_133569a.jpg
 
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I thought Chiron was an American company based in California with a manufacturing plant in England? :confused:
 
anitram said:
Is it more important to protect the health of the citizens or for a private company to make a fortune? If they have low profit margins, they still have profit, and are not losing money on the production. It's open greed that's keeping them from producing the vaccine en masse.

Unless you want the government to do everything, the risk-reward ratio must tip the right way for private companies to provide such things. Exposure to lawsuits, especially those manufactured by class action attorneys, artificially shift the balance for the principle benefit of greedy attorneys.
 
somebody help the canadian please:)
she missed the 5 million dollar settlement punch-line and the john edward's connection and why the drug companies cannot afford to offer inexpensive flu shots because of attorneys like John Edwards:)

thx,
db9
 
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No one should take a flu vaccine as long as they still contain mercury, imo.

I take a homeopathic 'vaccination.' I never get the flu (knock on wood).
 
nbcrusader said:


Unless you want the government to do everything, the risk-reward ratio must tip the right way for private companies to provide such things. Exposure to lawsuits, especially those manufactured by class action attorneys, artificially shift the balance for the principle benefit of greedy attorneys.

Maybe in this case it would be better for the government to do it -- public good before private profit [or lack thereof].

I wish I could have gotten one. After getting one for several years, my natural immunity to the flu is shot. And the fiance was in ICU last year with saline drips because he dehydrated from the flu. Oh and I work for a media company so got one in 2001 so if I did get flu-like symptoms, I knew it was anthrax and not the flu.
 
sharky said:


After getting one for several years, my natural immunity to the flu is shot.

That can easily be reversed. Find a good naturopathic physician and you will never want or need a flu shot again.
 
joyfulgirl said:
No one should take a flu vaccine as long as they still contain mercury, imo.

I take a homeopathic 'vaccination.' I never get the flu (knock on wood).

mercury :ohmy:

I've had some REALLY bad cases of influenza (namely my senior year of HS, missed so much school I almost couldn't pass the semester and was sick of over a month) and have never had a flu shot. My doctor has said he doesn't like to encourage shots or taking antibiotics unless it's really necessary b/c like sharky said, you just ruin your natural immunity which is the best. I hear people with the shot can still get it anyway. I'd rather have and elderly person have my shot so their flu doesn't turn into something more life threatening.
 
LivLuvAndBootlegMusic said:


I'd rather have and elderly person have my shot so their flu doesn't turn into something more life threatening.

that's what GW suggested and later got ridiculed by Kerry.
Part of the reason that we do not have enough flu vacinations is because of Kerry's running mate.
John Edwards-
edwards.jpg
 
sharky said:


Maybe in this case it would be better for the government to do it -- public good before private profit [or lack thereof].

What sort of things do you believe should be under government control, or provided by the government instead of using private entities? All vaccinations? All healthcare?
 
I haven't gotten a flu shot in years. I tend to get the flu or at least a bad respiratory disease after I get it, so I'd rather not do it.
 
Hey diamond...

Surely, during the course of this exhaustive investigation of yours, you came across the name of the case. Could you give us this information?

I'll go out on a limb here, and say you can't, because almost certainly this case flat-out doesn't exist. You just reprinted some lame-ass email without worrying the slightest bit about whether it was, like, true and stuff.

You're embarrassing yourself with this, diamond. Don't be such a chump.

BAW's right, by the way. Chiron is an American company.
 
:sexywink:

i was duped and learned my lesson..:wink:

so i apologize to the democrats here, mr edwards and his supporters.

db9
 
diamond said:
:sexywink:

i was duped and learned my lesson..:wink:

so i apologize to the democrats here, mr edwards and his supporters.

db9


I guess CBS and NY Times would do well to check their stories before publishing them.
 
Russian Expert Says Flu Epidemic May Kill Over One Billion This Year


MosNews

The world is on the brink of a major flu epidemic — one that could claim more than a billion lives, the head of the Russian Virology Institute, Academician Dmitry Lvov said at a press conference organized by the RIA-Novosti news agency on Thursday.

“Up to one billion people could die around the whole world in six months,” Lvov said. The expert did not give a timeframe for the epidemic, but said that it is highly probable that it will start this year. “We are half a step away from a worldwide pandemic catastrophe,” the academic said.

The Russian expert said that U.S. researchers possessed data suggesting that if a pandemic hits, up to 700,000 people will fall ill in the United States. He said that the population of the United States can be roughly compared to that of Russia and thus the number of cases will be approximately the same.

The academician said the pandemic was most likely to be caused by the so-called bird flu stem. “The death rate among those who contract this type of flu reaches 70 percent,” Lvov said.

The expert called for the Russian authorities to prepare for the epidemic. The country will need a reserve of at least 300,000 hospital beds if an epidemic breaks out, he said.


I suppose this is one way to get Social Security payouts down.
 
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