Login
The Bird Flu Vaccine Is Made With Eggs. That Has Scientists Worried.
Even a peep of news about a new flu pandemic is enough to set scientists clucking about eggs. They worried about them in 2005, and in 2009, and they’re worrying now. That’s because millions of fertilized hen eggs are still the main ingredient in making vaccines that, hopefully, will protect people against the outbreak of a new flu strain.
The spread of an avian flu virus has decimated flocks of birds (and killed barn cats and other mammals). Cattle in at least nine states and at least two people in the U.S. have been infected, enough to bring public health attention once again to the potential for a global pandemic.
To make raw material for an influenza vaccine, the virus is grown in millions of fertilized eggs. Sometimes it doesn’t grow well, or it mutates to a degree that the vaccine product stimulates antibodies that don’t neutralize the virus — or the wild virus mutates to an extent that the vaccine doesn’t work against it. And there’s always the frightening prospect that wild birds could carry the virus into the henhouses needed in vaccine production.
Pfizer and Moderna are testing seasonal influenza vaccines made with mRNA, and the government is soliciting bids for mRNA pandemic flu vaccines, said David Boucher, director of infectious disease preparedness at HHS’ Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response.
Vermont Supreme Court Hears Arguments in Accidental COVID Vaccination Case
The Vermont Supreme Court on Tuesday heard arguments in a case brought by the parents of a student who received a COVID-19 vaccine against their wishes.
The lawsuit, filed two years ago against the state of Vermont and the Windham Southeast Supervisory Union, claimed that Dario and Shujen Politella’s child, who was 6 years old at the time, was mistakenly given a COVID-19 shot. The incident, which reportedly stemmed from a name tag mix-up, occurred in November 2021 at a vaccination clinic held at the Academy School in Brattleboro.
Windham Superior Court Judge Michael Kainen dismissed the case in January 2023. Kainen cited the federal PREP Act, a 2005 law that provides immunity from liability to government officials administering “countermeasures” in response to a public health emergency — in this case, the COVID-19 vaccine.
The Politellas appealed to the state’s highest court. During Tuesday’s arguments Ronald Ferrara, an attorney representing the parents, said they were not challenging the constitutionality of the PREP Act, but, citing other state court cases, he argued that the “idea that the PREP Act provides blanket immunity is eroding.”
Study of Deadly Australian Japanese Encephalitis Virus Strain Prompts Push for New Vaccine
Researchers have conducted the first comprehensive two-year laboratory characterization of the rare sub-type of the mosquito-borne Japanese encephalitis virus (JEV) that caused an unprecedented deadly outbreak in Australia in 2022.
The study, which was conducted in QIMR Berghofer’s high biocontainment facility, showed the strain’s potential to cause fatal brain infection and establishes technologies to test new vaccines to protect Australian populations.
Published in npj Viruses, the research found that miniature human brain organoids were destroyed when infected with the virus.
The research also looked at blood samples from individuals vaccinated against JEV, and found that while it did offer protection against the new Australian strain, more work was needed to tailor a new vaccine to the recent Australian outbreak strain.
Moderna Stock Is Having Another Very Bad Day. Here’s Why.
Moderna shares were down another 7.8% Wednesday morning after falling 8% Tuesday, crimping what had been the stock’s best month in years.
There was no apparent impetus for the selloff, but the drop comes at a busy moment for the company, as it waits on a handful of important developments involving an experimental cancer treatment, a new vaccine, and the avian flu, which could weigh heavily on its future.
The stock was down to $141.64 early Wednesday, down from a Friday closing price of $166.61 but well ahead of where it began the month, at $110.31. Moderna MRNA-5.16% shares had been having their best month in years, and the stock had been climbing for 10 straight trading days before the Tuesday selloff.
While the avian flu vaccines the government has stockpiled are made by other manufacturers, Moderna confirmed to Barron’s last week it was in discussions with the federal government about the pandemic flu candidate vaccine it is developing.
Big Pharma’s Focus on Profit Is Behind Medicine Shortages, Superbug Threat
What happens when we run out of medicines? Medical authorities around the world are pondering this question as they struggle with shortages of a range of essential medicines amid a global drug supply crisis.
Separately, England’s former chief medical officer Sally Davies, warns us of the growing threat posed by drug-resistant superbugs. The antimicrobial resistance crisis could make the COVID-19 pandemic “look minor,” Davies claims, if not met with urgent action, including the development of new antibiotics.
At first glance, these two crises seem to have little in common other than the serious threat they pose to human life. But they are, in fact, born out of a single problem: Big Pharma’s prioritization of profit, which disincentivizes it from both keeping essential medicines accessible and developing new medicines we desperately need.
BioNTech Gets $145 Million Funding for African Vaccine Plants
COVID-19 vaccine maker BioNTech (22UAy.DE) has secured up to $145 million in funding from a global coalition against infectious diseases to help build a production network in Africa for shots based on cutting-edge messenger-RNA (mRNA) technology.
A future African network could produce affordable vaccines to fight malaria, mpox, tuberculosis or other health threats, they added.
The funds pledged by CEPI come on top of up to $90 million that the coalition granted BioNTech in September to support the development of mpox vaccine candidates.
Data Breach at Pharma Partner Cencora Puts Sensitive Patient Information at Risk
A data breach at drug distributor Cencora has left sensitive information vulnerable, with patients on medicines from a dozen drugmakers potentially affected.
Cencora, formerly known as AmerisourceBergen, and its patient services unit Lash Group have submitted a data breach notification to the California attorney general’s office. In letters to patients, Cencora explained that it learned “data from its information systems had been exfiltrated” on Feb. 21.
The company sent letters to patients receiving medicines marketed by Bristol Myers Squibb, Bayer, Genentech, Acadia, AbbVie, Novartis, Regeneron, Incyte, Dendreon Pharmaceuticals, Sumitomo Pharma, Endo and GSK.
The information involved could include first and last names, addresses, birthdates, health diagnoses and prescriptions, Cencora warned.
Novo Blames U.S. Health System After Sanders’ Wegovy Criticism
Novo Nordisk A/S said it retains about 60% of the list price of Ozempic and Wegovy in the U.S. after rebates and fees paid to middlemen, as the debate heats up over the cost of its blockbuster diabetes and obesity medicines.
Novo is prepared to work with lawmakers to address “systemic issues so that everyone who can benefit from its medicines is able to get them,” the Danish drugmaker said in a letter Friday to Senator Bernie Sanders, who has been pressing Novo to lower the cost of Wegovy. “Under current market conditions, the company expects that net prices will continue to decline for both Ozempic and Wegovy.”
