A Swine Flu Vaccine Batch Gone Bad: Side Effects Cause Scare

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A batch of Canadian swine flu vaccine has been linked to severe allergic reactions in six recipients. The batch containing enough vaccine to protect 172,000 people will now have to be discarded. The incidence of the allergic reactions is unexpectedly high for this batch -- the norm is less 1 per 100,000, but 6 per 172,000 is almost four times the average reaction, especially considering that not all doses in the batch have been administered yet, and there can be many more recipients with side effects out there. The batch was used in Manitoba, British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Ontario and Prince Edward Island provinces of Canada.

Here is a statement from the producer of the swine flu vaccine in Canada GlaxoSmithKline:

There are allegations one person might have died from anaphylactic reaction.

What are vaccine batches and what can cause an allergic reaction?

Due to the prodigious amounts of vaccine that have to be produced during pandemics, it is typical to produce vaccines in batches -- i.e.: in volumetric portions. While the formula, ingredients and procedure used for vaccine production are expected to be virtually identical between vaccine batches, there is room for variation, and vaccine samples can differ from batch to batch.

The ingredients of the vaccine that can cause people to develop allergic reactions are egg albumin, antibiotics, gelatin and mercury. All these ingredients are supposed to be absent from any given vaccine batch, but the filtration process is not always perfect and trace amounts of these ingredients can end up in the vaccine mix. These amounts can be sufficient to provoke an allergic reaction, however. Live attenuated swine flu vaccine is grown in eggs, hence egg albumin can be present. Antibiotics are sometimes used to prevent bacteria from contaminating the vaccine. Gelatin is used to stabilize proteins present in the vaccine and mercury used to be added as an adjuvant, but is not supposed to be used anymore due to its toxic effects.