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Dana Blankenhorn
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A year into H1N1, a call for better vaccine technology

By | April 22, 2010, 8:48am PDT

Summary: More work is needed on shelf stable, egg-free vaccine technologies, and on scaling them. But that work is continuing. Next time H1N1 strikes, perhaps this winter, we shouldn’t be panicking.

It was one year ago this month when we first started getting reports of H1N1 “swine” flu.

It was a panic.

(Shown is the cover of Newsday, the daily newspaper I grew up on, at the height of the panic last May.)

Were we going too fast? Were we going too slow? Were were all going to die? Was the cure worse than the disease?

My introduction to China came a month later, when a crew dressed like we were a hazardous waste site got on our plane in Shanghai and took everyone’s temperature. Lots of famous people were detained, and some never got into the country, before it became clear the virus was coming in anyway. It was tougher than a Mexican dishwasher.

The course authorities finally settled on was to declare a pandemic, create a separate vaccine for H1N1, using the same production techniques as for seasonal flu, and the same distribution methods.

The result was a panic to get the first supplies, followed by ennui that left millions of dollars in vaccine unused, suitable only for the landfill.

The government is now defending its approach. Flu.Gov features a review of the last year, but also a film about the 1918 pandemic, which killed 10 times more Americans than died in World War I.

What seems clear in retrospect was that there were no good choices. The only reliable route to vaccination was through chicken eggs. Failure to vaccinate would have been an unconscionable risk.

But there other ways, as we reported at ZDNet. A single vaccine could be used against many different types of flu. We could find other ways to produce vaccine, leading to product that is more shelf stable.

One of the biggest winners in the whole H1N1 panic may have been Crucell, a vaccine maker which got a major investment from Johnson & Johnson that will help it maintain its independence.

More work is needed on shelf stable, egg-free vaccine technologies, and on scaling them. But that work is continuing.

Next time H1N1 strikes, perhaps this winter, we shouldn’t be panicking.

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Topics

Vaccine, H1N1 Flu, Healthcare, Pharmaceuticals, Dana Blankenhorn

Disclosure

Dana Blankenhorn

Dana Blankenhorn has been a journalist, writer and part-time futurist for over 30 years. At the present moment I run only a personal blog in addition to my ZDNet open source blog. DanaBlankenhorn.Com has the subtitle The War Against Oil. In the past I have used it to write about political history, e-commerce, personal matters, some ideas related to open source, and The World of Always On, which is the idea of using sensors, motes and RFID to turn WiFi links into platforms for applications which live in the air. My IRA account at Schwab holds a few tech shares, most notably some Intel and Applied Materials, but there are no open source companies in it. I don’t even own any CBS stock.

Biography

Dana Blankenhorn

Dana Blankenhorn has been a business journalist since 1978, and has covered technology since 1982. He launched the Interactive Age Daily, the first daily coverage of the Internet to launch with a magazine, in September 1994.
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It was lower, they really couldn't measure it.
TripleII-21189418044173169409978279405827 25th Apr 2010
http://www.thenewamerican.com/index.php/usnews/health-care/1901-h1n1-swine-flu-death-rate-is-low

Harvard University?s Dr. Marc Lipsitch believes the H1N1 flu ranks at the lowest end of the rating scale for pandemic diseases.
...
Category one equates to a normal seasonal flu epidemic, which has a death rate below 0.1 percent.

And again, with it so INCREDIBLY common, with millions and millions of cases not even tracked (see my post below, Ottawa Civic hospital didn't even bother tracking anymore because it was over 99% of all flu cases) and less than 0.1% (nobody really knows) mortality, it was entirely a media hyped pandemic.

TripleII
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0 Votes
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Overblown
CobraA1 22nd Apr 2010
"It was one year ago this month when we first
started getting reports of H1N1 'swine' flu."

. . . and to this day, there's really no
credible evidence that it was any worse than
the regular flu. I don't think there was really
any good reason to emphasize this particular
strain of the flu, other than it makes good
news.

. . . and by now, most people are going to have
an immunity to it. Either from the flu shots or
by contracting it. H1N1 is very unlikely to get
any worse this time than it was last time.
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That's not really true, CobraA1
DanaBlankenhorn 22nd Apr 2010
Case for case, you had a much better chance of
death from H1N1 than from seasonal flu. And the
chances were higher if you were young and healthy
than if you were older.

In the end, thousands did die. But thousands die
from the seasonal flu.
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h1n1 was a normal flue. Period.
NoThankYou2 23rd Apr 2010
No need for your uber-hysteria.
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Not true in the slightest.
TripleII-21189418044173169409978279405827 25th Apr 2010
During the "hype", my old hometown hospital, the Civic Hospital, Ottawa, stopped bothering to check for H1N1 because virtually ALL cases of the flu were H1N1 and there was no point. They simply assumed it WAS H1N1 and with the media (you included) so desperate to prove the dire predictions, if the death rates where a thousandth of a percent higher than normal, they would have been all over it like white on rice. Turned out to be 100 times LESS dangerous than normal flu.

TripleII
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"It was a panic"
itpro_z 22nd Apr 2010
Dana, it was a panic because you and your peers made it seem like the end of the world, just like you did with the Bird Flu, West Nile, and countless other non-events. H1N1 is the flu, which comes around every year, nothing more. H1N1 was a mild flu for the vast majority of people, not worthy of the hysterics that the irresponsible Main Scream Media created over it.

Did some die of the flu? Yes, of course they did, just like happens every year. Death is a part of disease, a part of life. Some people die from a scratch, or getting the common cold. Will you be hyping that next?
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Easy to be complacent
Snooki_smoosh_smoosh 22nd Apr 2010
especially if you either don't know someone who
has died, or been directly effected by a
serious disease.

Grant it be that H1N1 did not become the
serious killer it could have been. But people
would have been screaming if WHO and the media
said little about it, and millions died.

"Death is a part of disease, a part of life.
Some people die from a scratch, or getting the
common cold. Will you be hyping that next?"

Keep in mind that diseases such as Polio and
Small Pox are diseases that are fading memory
only alive in those who are old enough to
remember what devastating effects those
diseases had. My 95yo Grandmother is a Polio
Survivor, and she has had to live the
debilitated effects of that disease for most of
her life. Polio is something that you or I
never had to worry about because of the
advancements made in medicine leading to
vaccines.

And when the next virus emerges, which would
you rather have, a media that says "Hey, pay
attention to this" or just down plays it, then
millions die? Or perhaps you shouldn't care,
and ignore it all together, after all it is
just death, it happens sooner or later...
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Not the point
itpro_z 22nd Apr 2010
We weren't talking about Polio, or Small Pox, or any other serious disease, we were discussing H1N1, a relatively mild seasonal flu that was hyped by the media to scare people into getting vaccinated. And for what? Ratings, or to sell vaccine? My theory is the latter.

I have nothing against reporting facts, but H1N1 was never a serious threat. Neither was the Bird Flu before it, or the West Nile before that. If the irresponsible media keeps crying wolf over nothing, then people will quickly just tune them out. What will happen then if a truly serious threat comes along?
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There was reason to panic
DanaBlankenhorn 22nd Apr 2010
Especially in the early weeks of the outbreak, it
appeared that the death rate from this H1N1 strain
was extremely high. As we got better at treating
it, that went down, but it remained well above the
death rate from regular flu.

And what would you rather have -- a needless panic
or complacency leading to mass death? That's the
choice authorities had.
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Really, I don't think it was panic,
Snooki_smoosh_smoosh 22nd Apr 2010
I mean it certainly got patients to go in and
talk to their doctors, and get their questions
and concerns addressed, which is never a bad
thing, perhaps made the Doctors and Medical
Centers a little more busier than normal, as I
know our local Medical Center was very busy, especially at the start of this school year
when many families were hit with this bug.

I know that even our local medical center had
extended hours on the weekend to meet the
demand, a lot of children were ill, and most
were mild cases, but it was in huge #'s and
very early in the season, abnormally early.

Of course I agree with Dr. Mikio Kaku who has
expressed the view that we are leaving the age
of Scientific Discovery, and entering the age
of Scientific Mastery. An age where yes discoveries are still being made, but being
able to focus in on how treatments effect
certain patients in different ways, allowing
Doctors to make treatment plans specific to the
patient.
0 Votes
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I felt panic
DanaBlankenhorn 22nd Apr 2010
There was extensive panic during my Asia trip last
year, which only abated when I was on the plane
nearing Chicago, where slowly my fellow passengers
removed their masks.
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So? That's no reason to turn of your brain,
NoThankYou2 23rd Apr 2010
and stop thinking critically.
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The only reason to panic was...
Hatestone Johnson 22nd Apr 2010
...on the side of the Vaccine Industry. They panicked at the thought of
people being smart enough not to buy into the manufactured hysteria.
They were hoping their friends in the media would create a panic and
the VI would cash in on their investment. But cooler heads prevailed, the
regular flu was far deadlier and hopefully the loss the VI has to take will
make them think twice before dumping lots of money into the next
vaccine/media scare venture.
0 Votes
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uh. no
DanaBlankenhorn 22nd Apr 2010
Had we had gotten vaccines the outbreak would have
been much worse. And the death rate from this
disease was higher than that of seasonal flu.
Death came mostly to young, healthy people. That's
where the panic came from.

But I agree with those who say we need better
vaccine technologies than using chicken eggs to
create doses that go bad quickly.
0 Votes
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uh. no.
NoThankYou2 23rd Apr 2010
"Had we had gotten vaccines the outbreak would have been much worse."

--> That's no fact. That's your wishful thinking (because accepting the reality would mean you would have to admit you were wrong all along and that's painful I guess)

And the death rate from this disease was higher than that of seasonal flu.

---> Blatantly wrong. Why do you still feel the need to lie? Is it that admitting you were wrong all along is too painful?

I'm glad I didn't take the vaccine. There was no need. And as an additional bonus I avoided having injected toxins into my body.

Some people do think.
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It was lower, they really couldn't measure it.
TripleII-21189418044173169409978279405827 25th Apr 2010
http://www.thenewamerican.com/index.php/usnews/health-care/1901-h1n1-swine-flu-death-rate-is-low

Harvard University?s Dr. Marc Lipsitch believes the H1N1 flu ranks at the lowest end of the rating scale for pandemic diseases.
...
Category one equates to a normal seasonal flu epidemic, which has a death rate below 0.1 percent.

And again, with it so INCREDIBLY common, with millions and millions of cases not even tracked (see my post below, Ottawa Civic hospital didn't even bother tracking anymore because it was over 99% of all flu cases) and less than 0.1% (nobody really knows) mortality, it was entirely a media hyped pandemic.

TripleII
0 Votes
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Really?
itpro_z 22nd Apr 2010
The point is, if the media and/or the CDC keep crying wolf every time a new sniffle comes along, the public will no longer believe them. What happens when a REAL threat presents itself?

Do you remember the Bird Flu, and the doomsday talk then? What about West Nile? The had people afraid to go outside. Like H1N1, none of those amounted to much of anything, yet if you watched the major news channels you would have thought The Stand was coming true. I am sorry, but 14K deaths out of a population of 6 billion is not a pandemic.
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Hear Hear
NoThankYou2 23rd Apr 2010
You're so right. The Dana's of this world were all screaming Doom 'n Gloom / World Will End If.. (etc.).

Reality: we've all been had - and hard - by the commercial interests of the vaccine pushers. And what do these companies do? They make sure they first target two demographics before going 'official':
1. The 'soft' people like Dana who get scared easily and are not critical about the information being spoon-fed to them;
2. Institutions with vested interests in hysteria. Take for example health boards that need funding.

So get those two excited first. Then comes the gullible mainstream media (nobody's researching anything anymore these days) who further weaken the general population with inaccurate information. And then politics etc.

The sad thing is that people don't seem to learn. We just have determined the hard facts that we've been lied to and info-raped. There was no plague. H1N1 is not more dangerous than regular flu. Vaccines have costed many lives (including some babies - google it) and poisoned many (long term effects). And now? We've got the Dana's of this world still happily defending his hysteria.

Sad.
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Its dam if you do, dam if you don't.
Snooki_smoosh_smoosh 22nd Apr 2010
Had the WHO (World Health Organization) had
done nothing, or just played it off as a wait
and see sort of thing, people might have died
off by the thousands.

But they are damed because they did, and while
it may seem the effort was wasted, it was not,
because the out come could have been much
worse.

There just really is no way to really predict
what kind of an effect a virus is going to have
on a population, until it really hits. I know
my entire family got hit with it. Kids missed a
few days of school, I missed some work, and
yeah we survived it.

As far a vaccine technology, there has only
been one other that I have seen, and I don't
know if it is still being developed or what,
but it consisted of stripping out the proteins
of the virus' DNA, and then bonding those
proteins to gold dust of a few microns, which
then just get blown into the skin by a pop of
air. It was featured on a TV show "Beyond
Tomorrow" back in like 2005 or 2006 something
like that, the series came to an end in 2007
after 51 episodes.
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I think it's damned
DanaBlankenhorn 22nd Apr 2010
Damned is a damn hard word to spell. I agree
with you.

I think the authorities' reaction to this
outbreak was conservative, in the best sense of
that term. That is, they went with what they
knew worked, and they erred on the side of
caution.

My point today is that new technologies need to
be used for future outbreaks, and there are new
technologies available. If you went to some of
the links, many have been developed just in the
last year. Including egg-free vaccine
techniques. I wrote about one here, but the
Google can't seem to find it.
0 Votes
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Damned is a dam(n) hard word to spell
Snooki_smoosh_smoosh 22nd Apr 2010
when your suffering from allergies, and recovering
from a stomach bug, and the brain isn't completely
in spelling gears as a result. wink
0 Votes
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Sorry if I was hard on you
DanaBlankenhorn 22nd Apr 2010
I get so many notes about spelling errors it felt
good to be sending one. But commenters should get
more forgiveness than bloggers -- or "contributing
editors" as they're now called.

I'd rather you call me a blogger.
0 Votes
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Better vaccine technology? How about...
Hatestone Johnson 22nd Apr 2010
...passing a law only allowing natural ingredients in
vaccines? The H1N1 vaccine had high levels of Squalene and
Thimerasol. Why?

The cure was worse than the disease in some cases, i.e. a
possibility of Guillan Barre Syndrome.
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Define natural
DanaBlankenhorn 22nd Apr 2010
Mercury is natural. It's an element. It occurs in
nature. I still don't want it.

There's a problem with using the phrase "natural
ingredients" in anything. Drugs are chemicals. And
the most natural way to make flu vaccine is with
chicken eggs.

Which as we've seen is wasteful.
0 Votes
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One of the ingredients in the H1N1 vaccine...
Hatestone Johnson Updated - 22nd Apr 2010
is also an ingredient used in lethal injections, Potassium Chloride.
Below is a list
of ingredients in one of the vaccines:

What Focetria (Novartis) contains:
- Active Substance:
Influenza virus surface antigens (haemagglutinin and neuraminidase)*
of strain:
A/California/7/2009 (H1N1)v like strain (X-179A) 7.5 micrograms**
per 0.5 ml
dose
* propagated in eggs
** expressed in microgram haemagglutinin.
This vaccine complies with the WHO recommendation and EU decision
for the
pandemic.
- Adjuvant:
The vaccine contains an ?adjuvant? (MF59C.1) to stimulate a better
response.
MF59C.1 is an oil/water emulsion containing 9.75 mg squalene, 1.175
mg
polysorbate 80 and 1.175 mg sorbitan trioleate in a citrate buffer.
- Other Ingredients:
The other ingredients are: thiomersal (multidose vial only), sodium
chloride,
potassium chloride, potassium dihydrogen phosphate, disodium
phosphate
dihydrate, magnesium chloride hexahydrate, calcium chloride
dihydrate, sodium
citrate, citric acid and water for injections.

Is there any plausible reason these chemicals need to be in the
vaccine? I'm
guessing all these ingredients can be replaced with other ingredients
conducive to
good health. I don't want any of those things in my body.

To answer your definition of natural ingredients, I'd say they need to
figure out a
way to replace these chemicals with vitamins or something less
harmful.
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How much potassium chloride
DanaBlankenhorn 23rd Apr 2010
You write about potassium chloride and lethal
injection as though any amount of potassium
chloride means a lethal injection. That's just
not true.

The point of this story was that vaccine
technology needs to improve for future outbreaks
of the H1N1 flu. We're in basic agreement.

But letting the perfect become the enemy of the
good is only of benefit to the bad. In this case
we have had a secondary epidemic of H1N1 in the
American South because so many people refused
vaccinations.
0 Votes
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You're dodging his point. Sad.
NoThankYou2 23rd Apr 2010
Facts on the ground have proven your last year's hysteria wrong. Just man up to it.
0 Votes
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Potassium chloride is a dietary salt substitute. And fertilizer.
Robert Carnegie 2009 23rd Apr 2010
Potassium salt is necessary to life, anyway. But you can get too much. This is rare, however. Bananas are rich in potassium. Imagine eating a banana and some salted potato chips. Effectively, you just ate potassium chloride. In fact, because your stomach uses hydrochloric acid to digest food, you have got potassium chloride just by eating the banana. And yet bananas are rarely used to commit suicide. Maybe you remember a David Blaine act involving a tightrope, banana peels, and a tank of piranha fish, although that would be an unusual coincidence because I just made it up. But you still could have been thinking of the same thing.
0 Votes
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The best vaccine is no vaccine.
NoThankYou2 23rd Apr 2010
People who want to get informed have wealth of research (non-pharma paid) available, indicating that vaccines are no good for people.
0 Votes
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Rewrite history, you were instrumental!
TripleII-21189418044173169409978279405827 25th Apr 2010
Next time H1N1 strikes, perhaps this winter, we shouldn?t be panicking.

Do I need to dig through your archives to find the many many times you told anyone who didn't buy into the hype they were "free to die" from the coming pandemic. You can't now imply you were the "voice of reason", sorry, that dog won't hunt.

TripleII

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