2011 Flu vaccines withdrawn in alert over side-effects

Thierry Clerc Cambridge

In the autumn of 2011, health authorities had to withdraw more than 2,000 flu vaccines from use on Scottish patients as part of several reports on side-effects from a European-wide safety alert. Normal flu vaccines are cultivated in eggs, and Preflucel had been developed by Berkshire-based Baxter Healthcare to treat people with an egg allergy.

The alert had been raised in Germany where patients had reported side-effects, including headaches and nausea. While the authorities claim that these side-effects are normal when get with a flu vaccine, they found that more people were reporting these side-effects from this vaccine than is usual with the flu vaccine. There has been no investigation of why this batch of vaccines were causing more side-effects as normal, and if it could have been infected with other viruses, as this can happen.

If vaccines are safe, then why would they cause such side-effects?

To read more, contact the Scotsman newspaper, and ask for their edition of the 27th of October 2011.

2011 Flu vaccines withdrawn in alert over side-effects
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