Lawsuit seeks to halt US swine flu vaccination campaign
AFP/ PTI / Washington Oct 16, 2009, 11:15 IST
New York medical workers took legal action to halt a massive swine flu inoculation programme being rolled out across the United States, claiming the vaccines have not been properly tested.
Lawyers for the group filed a temporary restraining order in a Washington federal court against government medical regulators they claim rushed H1N1 vaccines to the public without adequately testing their safety and efficacy.
"None of the vaccines against H1N1 have been properly tested," attorney Jim Turner, one of half a dozen lawyers working on the case, told AFP.
The complaint filed yesterday argued that far from preventing a massive outbreak of swine flu, the "live attenuated influenza virus nasal mist vaccine could trigger" an H1N1 pandemic.
"I don't know of another live vaccine for flu. So you have immediately a new problem you don't have with a killed vaccine," Turner told AFP.
Officials at the National Institutes of Health have said that trials of swine flu vaccine began in August and delivered results last month, showing that the vaccine was well tolerated and produced a robust immune response in older children and adults in good health with just a single dose.
But Turner insisted that "the FDA did not do the proper testing to show safety and efficacy of this vaccine, which is under the law a new drug.
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