FDA Approves New Insect-Based Flu Vaccine

Would you try it?

A new insect-based flu vaccine has been approved by the Food and Drug Administration, and will be used immediately in people willing to test it. Flublok is unlike current vaccines in which, in order to be produced, the virus must be isolated from patients' blood, purified and injected into specific kinds of chicken eggs to grow. The Flublock vaccine avoids those time-consuming steps and is instead made by injecting flu genes into an insect virus and growing it in caterpillar cells. It's approved for use in adults ages 18 to 49, and about 150,000 doses of the vaccine have been produced and will be distributed by mid-February to people with egg allergies and others who are unable to receive current flu vaccines. (MSNBC)

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