Marta Falconi
Wall Street Journal
Switzerland’s health regulator imposed an immediate ban on Novartis AG’s flu vaccines Thursday after possibly contaminated flu shots were found in batches in Italy, in a further embarrassment for the Swiss drug maker, which has struggled with a raft of manufacturing problems recently.
Medical watchdog Swissmedic halted deliveries of up to 160,000 doses to doctors and pharmacies as a precaution following a similar move by Italian authorities.
So far, the Australian government has taken no action to ban the Novartis vaccines we use here. Switzerland, Italy, Germany and Spain have already banned these shots as a precaution. But the Australian government has done little to nothing about the problems with CSL's flu shots (don't use them on kids under 5 but OK for everyone else...) so why should we be surprised that they are doing nothing at all about these vaccines?
That is Amazing! It is such a precautionary litigious world we live in but the Governments agencies, Pharmaceutical Companies and Doctors are allowed to get away with it. My 85 year old mother has had 3 attacks of influenza this year and her last attack was the worst. She had her safe and effective flu shot in February. I think it’s time to rethink the idea that a yearly flu shot is safe or even effective. How would we ever know if she got the contaminated one?
Not banned. Stopped due to contamination. Big, very obvious difference. Have you considered the Australian government hasn’t “done anything”, because they’ve checked the batch numbers and they don’t have contaminates in them?
Your essentially reminding people that good and rigourous safeguards are in place for when mistakes are made.