Vaccine Contamination: Pig Virus DNA Found in Rotarix

[Guest guest]

Please take the time to read and listen to the

following from the NVIC.

 

Vaccine Contamination: Pig Virus DNA Found in Rotarix

http://www.nvic.org/NVIC-Vaccine-News/April-2010/Vaccine-Contamination-Pig-Virus-DNA-Found-in-Rota.aspx

 

 

Brief excerpt below:

 

After the team double checked their findings,

researchers notified GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) on February 9, 2010 and GSK notified

the FDA on March 15, 2010, which prompted the FDA's action on March 22, 2010 to

suspend use of Rotarix. The FDA says it " does not know how DNA from PCV1

came to be present in Rotarix " or whether " this means that intact

virus is present. Additional studies are being conducted. "

 

Rotavirus Vaccines Use Monkey,

Cow, Pig Materials for Production

 

Rotarix is a genetically engineered vaccine

that GSK created by isolating human rotavirus strain infecting a child in

Cincinnati and using African Green monkey kidney cells to produce the original

viral seed stock from which all Rotarix vaccine has been made. 7 In the FDA

licensing process, Rotarix had to meet certain FDA standards, that included

demonstrating the vaccine was not

contaminated with, for example TSE (Transmissable Spongiform Encephalopathy or

" mad cow " disease, a brain wasting disease) or with cow viruses

because bovine (cow) serum was used to prepare the original viral seed

stock. Porcine trypsin, an enzyme

in the pancreatic juice of a pig, was also used to make the viral seed stock.

 

RotaTeq is a genetically engineered vaccine

containing five human-cow reassortment strains of rotavirus that were created

at the Children's Hospital of Pennsylvania (CHOP), where strains of rotavirus

that give cows diarrhea were combined with strains of rotavirus that cause

diarrhea in humans. The reassortment viruses were transported to Merck, where

master seeds were produced using African Green Monkey kidney cell cultures.

Fetal bovine (cow) serum and porcine trypsin was used to make the " seed "

stock. There are small amounts of bovine serum and cell culture media (monkey

viral DNA) that remain in RotaTeq vaccine.

Using Cancer Cells to Produce Vaccines?

Vaccine

manufacturers have long used cell material that comes from the bodies of

mammals, including humans, monkeys, cows, pigs, dogs and rodents, as well as

birds or insects to make vaccines now in use or to make experimental vaccines.

There is an inherent risk of contamination with viruses and other microbes (or

DNA from those microbes) that can escape detection during the vaccine

development, testing, licensing, manufacturing and oversight process. There has

even been discussion among vaccine manufacturers and the FDA in the last decade

about using neoplastic (cancer) cell

substrates to make vaccines but the risk of contamination with cancer cell DNA

is a big risk.

New Influenza Vaccines: Is Contamination

Possible?

In

searching for ways to make seasonal influenza vaccines in a faster, easier and

less expensive way than relying on chicken eggs for production, drug companies

have experimented with using dog kidney cells and human fetal retinal cells.

However, these cell lines have been documented to cause tumors in animals,

especially dog kidney cells (MDCK).

At

a November 19, 2009 meeting of the FDA Vaccines & Related Biological Products

Advisory Committee, a vaccine manufacturer asked for permission to use insect

(caterpillar) cells to make pandemic influenza shots. But insect cells can be

contaminated with insect viruses that are hard to detect. The FDA

Committee, on that day, voted “no.”

 

Be Well

Dr.L