What I don't get about Avian flu
I don't get it.
Recently, I've heard several government spokespeople being interviewed about the possibility of an Avian flu pandemic, and in each case they have stated that it would take five or six years to produce enough vaccine to treat even a significant segment of the population. Meanwhile, they have developed rationing plans, targeting vaccines only to health care professionals and VIPs in industry and government.
What I don't get is why it supposedly will take so long to produce enough bird flu vaccine. First, it isn't because we haven't isolated the virus. We have, and small quantities of Avian flu vaccine are already being produced. If the virus learns to jump from human to human, we might have to isolate the new strain, but it doesn't seem to take long to do that.
The problem appears to be a question of production capacity. Yet, each year, we develop a new vaccine for regular flu, and combined in that vaccine are three different strains of flu which are cultured, grown, de-activated, and prepared for distribution, all within the year. Each year this process is begun anew with three new strains, and the entire process must be completed each year before the flu season begins. Since there are three vaccines in one, the process of culturing and growing the virus takes three times as much production capacity as would be required to produce a vaccine protecting against a single strain of flu, like the Avian flu.
So, the question is, if we can produce a new regular flu vaccine in massive quantities each flu season, why can't we do the same for Avian flu?
As far as I can tell, the answer is that the production facilities are already fully occupied producing regular flu vaccine. Well, gee. That seems to be a no-brainer to me. If we have a choice between using the facilities for regular vaccine or Avian flu vaccine, it seems to me that as soon as bird flu develops the capacity to pass from human to human (if it does), we should shut down the production of the regular vaccines and devote the entire production capacity to bird flu vaccines. After all, this virus kills about 50% of those it attacks, and the chances are good that very large segments of the population would contract it. The regular flu can kill, particularly when it attacks the aged, but the risks of leaving people unvaccinated for regular flu would be far less than those of letting the bird flu run rampant in an unprotected population.
So why isn't this the plan? Why are we talking about developing new and untested production techniques instead of using the techniques we already have at our disposal? I have nothing against the new techniques, but shouldn't we be planning to use the capacity we already have until the new techniques are readily available?
In the moments when I am most prone to believing in conspiracy theories, I wonder whether the plan to hold back production and ration vaccines only to health care workers and VIPs is a Bush-Republican plot to get rid of everyone earning less than a million dollars a year and thus rid the world of its surplus population. But, even Bush-Republicans couldn't stoop that low ... or could they?
Recently, I've heard several government spokespeople being interviewed about the possibility of an Avian flu pandemic, and in each case they have stated that it would take five or six years to produce enough vaccine to treat even a significant segment of the population. Meanwhile, they have developed rationing plans, targeting vaccines only to health care professionals and VIPs in industry and government.
What I don't get is why it supposedly will take so long to produce enough bird flu vaccine. First, it isn't because we haven't isolated the virus. We have, and small quantities of Avian flu vaccine are already being produced. If the virus learns to jump from human to human, we might have to isolate the new strain, but it doesn't seem to take long to do that.
The problem appears to be a question of production capacity. Yet, each year, we develop a new vaccine for regular flu, and combined in that vaccine are three different strains of flu which are cultured, grown, de-activated, and prepared for distribution, all within the year. Each year this process is begun anew with three new strains, and the entire process must be completed each year before the flu season begins. Since there are three vaccines in one, the process of culturing and growing the virus takes three times as much production capacity as would be required to produce a vaccine protecting against a single strain of flu, like the Avian flu.
So, the question is, if we can produce a new regular flu vaccine in massive quantities each flu season, why can't we do the same for Avian flu?
As far as I can tell, the answer is that the production facilities are already fully occupied producing regular flu vaccine. Well, gee. That seems to be a no-brainer to me. If we have a choice between using the facilities for regular vaccine or Avian flu vaccine, it seems to me that as soon as bird flu develops the capacity to pass from human to human (if it does), we should shut down the production of the regular vaccines and devote the entire production capacity to bird flu vaccines. After all, this virus kills about 50% of those it attacks, and the chances are good that very large segments of the population would contract it. The regular flu can kill, particularly when it attacks the aged, but the risks of leaving people unvaccinated for regular flu would be far less than those of letting the bird flu run rampant in an unprotected population.
So why isn't this the plan? Why are we talking about developing new and untested production techniques instead of using the techniques we already have at our disposal? I have nothing against the new techniques, but shouldn't we be planning to use the capacity we already have until the new techniques are readily available?
In the moments when I am most prone to believing in conspiracy theories, I wonder whether the plan to hold back production and ration vaccines only to health care workers and VIPs is a Bush-Republican plot to get rid of everyone earning less than a million dollars a year and thus rid the world of its surplus population. But, even Bush-Republicans couldn't stoop that low ... or could they?
posted by walldon | 12:15 PM
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