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March 15, 2005
The Chicken Business Behind Flu Vaccines
Oh, my goodness. I had NO idea:
Because of the nature of flu vaccine production, vaccine companies must place their egg orders six months or more before they begin producing vaccines. Further, approximately three eggs are required per vaccine dose, so this process consumes hundreds of millions of eggs (270 million or more for the United States alone) to produce a sufficient supply of vaccine for the United States. Additionally, when a pandemic is looming, vaccine companies must manufacture as much as ten times more vaccine than they would normally produce.Actually, GrrlScientist is writing about the science of flu vaccines, but the egg numbers caught my eye. Little things like 270 million eggs in a normal year must do interesting things to market prices of eggs.
Posted by CrankyProfessor at March 15, 2005 8:08 AM