The flu vaccines should be manufactures in the United States to protect our citizens. Sure the flu vaccines is manufacture in Liverpool, England it produce very little flu vaccines especially with the swine flu is H1N! outbreak every should be vaccines against the H1N1.

The CDC should push harder that includes Home Land Security to push the Magnifications to speed up the process of flu vaccines that will nucleate every populations against the swine flu 2009-2019 flu seasons.

Salem, New Hampshire

I would agree, if I were dealing with a brick-and-mortar pharmacy on a street in a Canadian city, selling drugs to Canadians or anyone else who walked in the door.

I am not sure that the Canadian inspection regimen applies to businesses in Canada that act as conduits, shipping all their product back to the USA.

http://www.fda.gov/fdac/features/2002/502_import.html

“……if a Canadian company is selling drugs only for export to the United States, and not to Canadian citizens, Health Canada may not regulate the drugs or the company at all. Drugs coming to the United States from Canada may be coming from some other country and simply passing through Canada……..”

How accurate this is, I don’t know. It’s from the FDA site. As the pharmaceutical firms are putting the screws to the Canadians, limiting their imports to reflect Canadian domestic needs, and no more, or enforcing reimportation agreements, the Canadian pharmacies are going to other countries to get product to sell to the USA.

They have used the usual Commonwealth countries, Australia, New Zealand, etc., where that Lipitor pill gets more flyer miles than I have. But they are starting to go further afield for product, Pakistan, etc. Maybe I’m a bigot, but my personal tolerance of this starts to erode as the shipping labels move out of the English language and out of the Roman alphabet.

So…….caveat emptor, as usual.

As the re-importation movement gets bigger and bigger, I am starting to feel LESS secure about the whole thing.

And, speaking of Canadian pharmacies, make sure you really are dealing with a “Canadian” pharmacy in the first place. I’ve already stopped a couple of elderly patients who brought in literature on “Canadian” pharmacies, where close inspection showed they clearly were not Canadian. Anyone can set up a 800-number or a “.ca” Web site and work out of a boiler room in Jakarta. Usually, one of the tactics they use is to get the doc to sign on, accept delivery of the medicine on behalf of the patient……in other words, find ways to make the doctor a liability target.

What a surprise.

With which half of my comment did you disagree? Vaccinating kids? That idea is not my own…

BEFORE SHORTAGE OF FLU VACCINE, MANY WARNINGS
The New York Times
Sunday, October 17, 2004

Dr. Robert B. Belshe, director of the center for vaccine development at Saint Louis University, said many experts in infectious diseases and vaccination believe that ultimately, the only way to control influenza will be to vaccinate nearly all school-age children every year.

If the medical profession does make that recommendation, and the public follows it, there will be a greater need than ever for vaccines — and possibly a more stable market to tempt manufacturers.

I agree that the safe handling argument is mostly specious. I wasn’t trying to defend it at all.

I was just pointing out to Phil that people who argue against re-importation from Canada aren’t really arguing that legitimate Canadian drugs are unsafe per se. They’re arguing that there’s insufficient oversight to assure proper sourcing, handling, etc.

Again, it’s a dumb argument, but if one wants to refute a dumb argument, it helps to know what the argument really is.

Regarding the 1918 comparison, the fact is that the timing of the emergence of the next pandemic strain of influenza cannot be predicted. But one thing is for certain: a pandemic virus will circle the globe a lot faster now via trans-oceanic air travel than it did in 1918. Despite the fact that the vaccine only ever offers partial protection, that partial protection could be quite valuable in the context of a pandemic.

On the bright side, I’m hopeful that all of this attention for influenza vaccination will lead to an annual program of vaccination for all school-aged children. That is perhaps the best solution for achieving disease control on an annual basis and would guarantee a reliable stream of annual volume sales.

I understand that price controls were imposed to make the vaccine affordable to anyone who needs it. However, the government cannot expect pharmaceutical companies to shoulder the burden of this “benevolence”. To prevent similar shortages in the future, perhaps the government should institute a buyback policy – where vaccine-producing companies would be reimbursed for losses. Or, the government could remove price controls and allow free markets to work.

On the sidenote, isn’t it interesting how you couldn’t pay people to take the vaccine last year, but this year its become a greater issue this winter than oil prices?

But that is not to say we should minimize the potential harm of influenza, particularly on children and the elderly. Which is one reason why current supplies should be given to those more vulnerable.

A national policy to avert a similar future shortage of vaccines would be to give drug companies immunity from lawsuits, and make it a little more profitable to those willing to engage in this risky enterprise. There are currently two companies here making the flu vaccine, with about 50% coming from the Chiron company in England where it got contaminated.

In short, we need to stay calm, vaccinate those who need it most – and just as important – stop politicizing
this as an election issue.