According to Pat El-Hinnawy, an FDA spokesperson, the action was a "voluntary, non-safety related recall. There are no safety concerns about the vaccine. The decrease in potency is not likely to be clinically significant. Individuals who received doses from the recalled lots do not need to be revaccinated." The company is investigating the reason for the loss of potency in their seasonal flu vaccines, and according to Tor Constantino, a spokesperson for the unit of AstraZeneca, they have not experienced problems with loss of potency in the past.Sanofi Aventis, CSL of Australia, AstraZeneca unit MedImmune and GlaxoSmithKline are five companies under contract with the U.S. Health and Human Services Department to produce 251 million doses of H1N1 vaccines, in addition to seasonal flu vaccines. There have already been 111 million doses of H1N1 vaccines produced, according to Dr. Anne Schuchat, with the Center for Disease Control.
According to U.S Health officials, cases of the H1N1 virus have continued to decrease across the U.S. and there are plenty of vaccines now available. However, there are not enough Americans being vaccinated. The swine flu is different from the seasonal flu because rather than targeting the elderly or those with weak immune systems, it actually seems to attack more children and young adults. If you or your loved ones have not been vaccinated, now is a great time, because there are plenty of vaccines available.
