this article<\/a> has it, if we want to pin some blame on the current shortage of flu vaccine, rather than pointing at George Bush, we might want to point at John Edwards — or at least his colleagues.<\/p>\nTwo weeks ago, British regulators suspended the license of Chiron Corp., the world’s second-leading flu vaccine supplier, for three months. Officials cited manufacturing problems at the factory in Liverpool, England, where Chiron makes its leading product, Fluvirin. Chiron was scheduled to supply 46 million of the 100 million doses to be administered in the United States this year. The other 54 million will come from Aventis Pasteur, a French company with headquarters in Strasbourg.<\/p>\n
So why is it that 100 percent of our flu vaccines are now made by two companies in Europe? The answer is simple. Trial lawyers drove the American manufacturers out of the business.<\/p>\n
I also mistrust analyses that start with, “the answer is simple,” but …<\/p>\n
In 1967 there were 26 companies making vaccines in the United States. Today there are only four that make any type of vaccine and none making flu vaccine. Wyeth was the last to fall, dropping flu shots
\nafter 2002. For recently emerging illnesses such as Lyme disease, there is no commercial vaccine, even though one has been approved by the Food and Drug Administration.<\/p>\n
I’d be curious for Margie’s perspective on this one …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I am usually not a big fan of “tort reform” — while I can certainly read about bizarro cases where jury awards seem outrageous, too many tort reform efforts smack…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7138","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics-law"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":16058,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2009\/10\/21\/the-real-swine-flu-conspiracy-revealed-sssshhhhhh.html","url_meta":{"origin":7138,"position":0},"title":"The Real Swine Flu Conspiracy Revealed! (Sssshhhhhh …)","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 21-Oct-09 8:41am","format":false,"excerpt":"Janet Porter and Louis Farrakhan ... strange bedfellows indeed. Hmmmm .... Porter, of course, is the conservative Christian conspiracist who's has been banging the drum that swine flu is all trumped up, and intended by folks like Obama to force people into prison camps to get vaccinated, which vaccinations will\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Health"","block_context":{"text":"Health","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/health"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":10653,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2006\/12\/01\/looks_like_i_picked_a_bad.html","url_meta":{"origin":7138,"position":1},"title":"Looks like I picked a bad week to stop sniffing live, attenuated influenza vaccine","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 1-Dec-06 12:15pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Got my \"flu shot\" yesterday. Being a guy who'd rather do nearly anything other than have someone stick a needle in my arm, I went for the \"live, intranasal vaccine,\"...","rel":"","context":"In "Health"","block_context":{"text":"Health","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/health"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":39419,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2013\/10\/31\/get-your-flu-shot.html","url_meta":{"origin":7138,"position":2},"title":"Get your flu shot","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 31-Oct-13 7:02am","format":false,"excerpt":"Okay, laziness and procrastination and forgetfulness I can appreciate (cough), if not approve of. \u00a0But if you're making a conscious decision to avoid a flu shot for quasi-scientific reasons ... don't.Reshared post from +George WimanRichly documented article on flu shot myths. Never mind if YOU get sick, please don't be\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":15990,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2009\/10\/12\/flu-vs-flu-whats-the-diff-between-seasonal-and-swine-flus.html","url_meta":{"origin":7138,"position":3},"title":"Flu vs. Flu – what’s the diff between Seasonal and Swine Flus?","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 12-Oct-09 1:18pm","format":false,"excerpt":"The following info is from Kaiser (slightly abridged), and provides a nice highlight between \"normal\" flu (which kills people) and N1N1 (which also kills people). The latter is not that different from the former; we're not talking about one of the horsemen of the apocalypse here, but it should still\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Health"","block_context":{"text":"Health","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/health"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":696,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2001\/08\/29\/more_coffee.html","url_meta":{"origin":7138,"position":4},"title":"More coffee?","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 29-Aug-01 11:55am","format":false,"excerpt":"While you're at it, check out Tortious Torts on this subject for a very balanced review of tort reform and the sort of stories that get floated on this subject....","rel":"","context":"In "Coffee"","block_context":{"text":"Coffee","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/food-drink\/coffee"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":44344,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2014\/08\/14\/an-er-visit-abroad.html","url_meta":{"origin":7138,"position":5},"title":"An ER Visit Abroad","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 14-Aug-14 6:49am","format":false,"excerpt":"This person's experience with the NHS mirrors mine from a few decades back. I was in the UK, fell and seriously injured my hand, and we decided that I really needed it looked at and to get a tetanus shot.We found a local hospital where we were staying. I was\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7138","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7138"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7138\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7138"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7138"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7138"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}