Vice Presidential Candidate John Edwards responsible for the flu vaccine shortage?-Fiction!

Vice Presidential Candidate John Edwards is the Attorney Responsible For Events that Lead Up to the 2004 Flu Vaccine Shortage-Fiction!

Summary of the eRumor The story says that flu vaccine used to be made here in the United States, but the companies that made it were driven out because of lawsuits and high liability costs. It says that the 2004 flu vaccine shortage was the result of sanitation problems at Chiron, the British Company making the vaccine. It further says that the whole liability mess that forced the American companies out of the flu vaccine business was from a lawsuit filed by a man over a flu shot...and that the attorney representing him was Democratic Vice Presidential candidate John Edwards.


The Truth The story about John Edwards is not true and was apparently fabricated. There is no lawsuit that we can find from North Carolina involving a man who took action because of a flu shot and had John Edwards as his lawyer. The Kerry-Edwards campaign office says the story is not true. Chiron is not a British Company. It is a U.S. company based in California. It's British factory (which it purchased a year earlier) was to have made almost half of the flu vaccine for the 2004 flu season, but lost its license to produce the vaccine when some batches were found to be contaminated with bacteria. A later, and shorter, version of the story claims to be from a Paul Harvey "Rest of the Story" feature. That is also false. Updated 10/21/04
A real example of the eRumor as it has appeared on the Internet:
Version #1 Subject: Fw: Flu Vaccine Read all the way to the bottom for a startling revelation about who is really responsible the flu vaccine shortage: Take the time to read this . . . it's very interesting. How Flu Vaccine works: Influenza vaccine is produced by growing the virus in eggs. The virus is killed and processed to create the vaccine, which is given by injection under the skin. The body then produces antibodies to the virus over the next two to four weeks. If the immunized person then comes into contact with the influenza virus, the antibodies attack and kill the virus before it has a chance to cause infection. The vaccine contains the 3 most likely strains to be active during the "flu season" Why the shortage: Almost half of the nation's flu vaccine will not be delivered this year. Chiron, a major manufacturer of flu vaccine, will not be distributing any influenza vac! cine this flu season. Chiron was to make 46-48 million doses vaccine for the United States. Chiron is a British company. Recently British health officials stopped Chiron from distributing and making the vaccine when inspectors found unsanitary conditions in the labs. Some lots of the vaccine were recalled and destroyed. Why is our vaccine made in the UK and not the US? The major pharmaceutical companies in the US provided almost 90% of the nations flu vaccine at one time. They did this despite a very low profit margin for the product. Basically, they were doing us a favor. In the late 80's a man from North Carolina who had received the vaccine got the flu. The strain he caught was one of the strains in that years vaccine made by a US company. What did he do? He sued and he won. He was awarded almost $5 million! After that case was appealed and lost, most US pharmaceutical companies stopped making the vaccine. The liability out w! eighed the profit margin. Since UK and Canadian laws prohibit such frivolous law suits UK and Canadian companies began selling the vaccine in the US. By the way...the lawyer that represented the man in the flu shot law suit was a young ambulance chaser by the name of John Edwards. Version #2 Subject: Paul Harvey: Why there's no flu vaccine. The major pharmaceutical companies in the US provided almost 90% of the nations flu vaccine at one time. They did this despite a very low profit margin for the product. Basically, they were doing us a favor. In the late 80's a man from North Carolina who had received the vaccine got the flu. The strain he caught was one of the strains in that years vaccine made by a US company. What did he do? He sued and he won. He was awarded almost $5 million! After that case was appealed and lost, most US pharmaceutical companies stopped making the vaccine. The liability out weighed the profit margin. Since UK and Canadian laws prohibit such frivolous law suits UK and Canadian companies began selling the vaccine in the US. By the way...the lawyer that represented the man in the flu shot law suit was a young ambulance chaser by the name of John Edwards. .......and now you know the rest of the story.