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Industry must be responsible for bird flu vaccine, says UK government

London Michael Day

The UK government has again clashed with the House of Lords over the readiness of the country’s vaccine manufacturers to deal with an epidemic of avian influenza in humans.

In December, in its report on epidemic flu, the House of Lords Science and Technology Select Committee said that ministers should “follow the example of the US in making a major investment in developing new vaccination techniques” (BMJ 2006;332:8, 7 Jan).

It also called on the government to encourage vaccine manufacturers to allow the “free exchange” of new technologies so that a vaccine may be produced as quickly as possible.

However, last week the Department of Health, in its official response to the report, said it was up to industry and not the government to prepare for the speedy mass production of a vaccine against bird flu.

The department said that vaccine manufacturers were “fully cognisant” of . . . [Full text of this article]

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