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in February:
AM £5
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Baxter International “Unintentionally” Sent Flu CW $50
Samples to Companies that Contained H5N1 DT $10
Avian Flu EM $18
GB $50
February 26th, 2009
KH $1
That’s the headline, but the reality of what happened might indicate a far more MS $5
serious situation.
MW $20
Pookie $75
In U.S. Researchers Trying to Create Pandemic Avian Flu, pay very close
attention to the part about the ferrets: TM $25.75
Partners
Now, flash forward to today.
What happened to the ferrets that received Baxter’s H5N1 virus material?
The animals died “promptly” according to the story below. Library
The sixtyfourthousanddollar question is: Did any ferrets in neighboring
cages—that didn’t receive the Baxter H5N1 virus—also get sick and die? The
answer to that question is conveniently missing from every story that I have
found about this incident.
If the answer is ‘yes’ it means that Baxter didn’t supply standard H5N1 virus,
but rather a weaponized/pandemic version that is the same as or similar to the
one that the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases was
developing.
Via: The Canadian Press:
Officials are trying to get to the bottom of how vaccine manufacturer Baxter
International Inc. made “experimental virus material” based on a human flu
strain but contaminated with the H5N1 avian flu virus and then distributed it
to an Austrian company.
That company, Avir Green Hills Biotechnology, then disseminated the supposed
H3N2 virus product to subcontractors in the Czech Republic, Slovenia and
Germany. Authorities in the four European countries are looking into the
incident, and their efforts are being closely watched by the World Health
Organization and the European Centre for Disease Control.
Though it appears none of the 36 or 37 people who were exposed to the
contaminated product became infected, the incident is being described as “a
serious error” on the part of Baxter, which is on the brink of securing a
European licence for an H5N1 vaccine. That vaccine is made at a different
facility, in the Czech Republic.
“For this particular incident … the horse did not get out (of the barn),” Dr.
Angus Nicoll of the ECDC said from Stockholm.
“But that doesn’t mean that we and WHO and the European Commission and
the others aren’t taking it as seriously as you would any laboratory accident
with dangerous pathogens which you have here.”
Accidental release of a mixture of live H5N1 and H3N2 viruses if that indeed
happened could have resulted in dire consequences. Nicoll said officials still
aren’t 100 per cent sure the mixture contained live H5N1 viruses. But given
that ferrets exposed to the mixture died, it likely did.
H5N1 doesn’t easily infect people, but H3N2 viruses do. They are one of two
types of influenza A viruses that infect people each flu season.
If someone exposed to the mixture had been coinfected with H5N1 and
H3N2, the person could have served as an incubator for a hybrid virus
able to transmit easily to and among people. That mixing process, called
reassortment, is one of two ways pandemic viruses are created.
Research published last summer by scientists at the U.S. Centers for Disease
Control found that in the laboratory, H5N1 and H3N2 viruses mated readily.
While less virulent than H5N1, a number of the offspring viruses appeared to
retain at least a portion of the killing power of their dangerous parent.
Baxter International, which is based in Deerfield, Ill., said the contamination
was the result of an error in its research facility in Orth Donau, Austria.
The facility had been contracted by Avir Green Hills to make what Baxter
refers to as “experimental virus material” based on human H3N2 viruses.
Christopher Bona, Baxter’s director of global bioscience communications, said
the liquid virus product was not a vaccine and was developed for testing
purposes only. He deferred questions about the purpose of the testing to Avir
Green Hills, but said the batch was to be used in animals and was never
intended for use in humans.
Avir Green Hills said in an email that it took possession of the material in late
December. It later sent the product to the sub contractors. The email said
the material was stored and handled throughout under high biosafety
conditions.
Alarm bells rang in early February when researchers at the Czech sub
contractor inoculated ferrets with the material and the animals promptly died.
Baxter learned about the problem on Feb. 6, Bona said from Deerfield.
Ferrets are susceptible to human flu strains, but they don ’t die from those
infections. Preliminary investigation found the material was contaminated with
H5N1 flu virus, which is lethal to ferrets.
Nicoll said the fact the ferrets died supports the working assumption that
there were live H5N1 viruses in the material Baxter produced.
Bona said Baxter has identified how the contamination happened and has
taken steps to ensure it doesn’t happen again. He said Austrian authorities
audited Baxter’s OrthDonau research operations after the problem came to
light and are satisfied with the steps taken.
Baxter is the only flu vaccine manufacturer to work with wild type flu viruses,
felt to be more dangerous than the altered and attenuated (weakened)
viruses other manufacturers use.
The company uses what is known as BSL3 level precautions in all its vaccine
research facilities, Bona said. (Researchers at the U.S. CDC use BSL3plus
biocontainment when working with H5N1 viruses, a spokesperson for the
agency said.)
People familiar with biosecurity rules are dismayed by evidence that
human H3N2 and avian H5N1 viruses have somehow comingled in the
Baxter research facility. That should not be allowed to happen, a number
of experts insisted.
The company isn’t shedding much light on how it did.
“It was a combination of just the process itself, (and) technical and
human error in this procedure,” Bona said. When asked to elaborate, he
said to do so would give away proprietary information about Baxter’s
production process.
Bona said when Baxter realized its error, it helped the various companies
destroy the contaminated material and clean up their facilities. And staff who
had been exposed to the contaminated product were assessed and monitored
by infectious diseases doctors. They were also offered the antiviral drug
oseltamivir (Tamiflu).
Baxter’s error is reminiscent of a 2005 incident where a U.S. manufacturer of
kits used by laboratories to test their detection capabilities included vials of
H2N2 virus in several thousand proficiency kits. H2N2, the virus that caused
the 1957 pandemic, has not circulated since 1968 and is thought to be a
prime candidate to cause the next pandemic.
That mistake, discovered by Canada ’s National Microbiology Laboratory, set
authorities around the world scrambling to retrieve and destroy the vials of
virus, which had been sent to labs in 18 countries.
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