H1N1 HYPE

US funds new flu vaccine to meet possible demand surge
Tuesday June 23, 2009


The US Department of Health and Human Services on Tuesday announced that a 35-million-dollar contract has been awarded to a US company that is developing a flu vaccine using insect cell technology.

"The technology has advanced in recent years to a point that we believe it could help meet a surge in demand for US-based vaccine for seasonal and pandemic flu," Health Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said in a statement.

The A(H1N1) virus, or swine flu, which emerged in Mexico in April, has been declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization and has killed 231 people worldwide and infected more than 52,000 people in 100 countries.

The contract awarded to Connecticut-based Protein Sciences Corporation could be extended for another five years for a total cost of 147 million dollars, the health department said.

Most of the world's flu vaccine is produced using chicken eggs, and production capacity is severely limited.

But Protein Sciences is working on making flu vaccine by infecting caterpillar cells with a baculovirus carrying the gene for hemagluttinin, a molecule that sticks out of the surface of the influenza virus.

"Using this method, vaccine candidates, clinical investigational lots, and commercial-scale vaccine production may be available faster than by using traditional vaccine production methods," the health department said in a statement.

"Because the basic cells can be frozen and stored indefinitely, manufacturing large quantities of a vaccine is also faster using this recombinant technology."

AND WE GET TO BE THE LAB RATS AGAIN,AND AGAIN, AND AGAIN