How the vaccine works:

Influenza vaccine is produced by growing the virus in eggs. The virus is killed and processed to create the vaccine, which is given by injection under the skin.
The body then produces antibodies to the virus over the next
two to four weeks. If the immunized person then comes into contact with the influenza virus, the antibodies attack and kill the virus before it has a chance to cause infection.
The vaccine contains the 3 most likely strains to be active during the "flu season"

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 ambulance chaser by the name of

John Edwards.

LMAO!

http://urbanlegends.about.com/b/a/2004_10_21.htm

Turns out there aren't many ppl making flu-vaccine simply because it's so risky and has to be made on high-margins. Vaccine has to be thrown out every year.
_________________

sorry about the bad info....

Litigation still plays a role. It might not be John Edwards fault or John Kerry's fault directly, but our legal system has played a role in making companies want to move away.

We have to stop this silly shit of people thinking they deserve to be a multi-millionaires if anyone wrongs them that can afford to pay.

"Hey! My Rice Crispies snapped and crackled, but there were no POPS. Kelloggs needs to make me rich, because I felt dissapointed and it ruined my day!"

touche'

Don't you mean douche'?

heh heh

Volvo, kill that avatar. It's F*CKING all the alignments up.

is that better?

Actually, no. That shit is way too big, man. It totally buttfucks my 56k. I removed it for a reason ;-).