Legal news for drug-related injury attorneys. Rotavirus vaccine contaminated with bits of benign pig virus.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) alerts- GlaxoSmithKline’s Rotarix vaccine used to fight the rotavirus in children is contaminated.
Washington, D.C.—On Monday, March 22, 2010 the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) http://www.fda.gov/ asked pediatricians to discontinue using GlaxoSmithKline’s Rotarix vaccine. The vaccine, which is used to fight against the leading cause of diarrhea in babies, is contaminated with particles of benign pig virus, as reported by MSNBC.
The pig virus is not known to cause any sort of illness among people and animals, but the FDA wanted to take precautions. The British-based vaccine has been used in millions of children across the globe, one million of which were used in the U.S., without any signs of safety issues. The FDA decided to announce the precautions because “vaccines are supposed to be sterile, and because there is competing vaccine against diarrhea-causing rotavirus that has tested clean—Merck’s Rotaq—the FDA decided to err on the side of caution.” A FDA commissioner stated, “This was a difficult decision for us to make because there is no evidence at this time hat there is a risk to patients who have received this vaccine, and we know there are real benefits for children to be vaccinated against rotavirus.
The Rotarix vaccine is an oral vaccine made from a strain of weakened human rotavirus which is grown inside living cells before it is purified into a vaccine. The Rotavirus can cause serve diarrhea among children, and known to kill babies in developing countries.
Legal News Reporter: Nicole Howley-Legal news for lawyers handing drug-related injury cases.
