I've been doing some internet research. I found that the factory that the British shut down has a longer history than is being stated. This factory which is currently owned by Chiron was part of Powderject when Chiron acquired Powderject in 2003.Powderject acquired the factory from Celtech which acquired it from Medeva and look what happened when Medeva owned it:
This says that Fluvarin may be contaminated with BSE(mad cow disease) but even if it isn't, it has a long history of contamination and the FDA should have known relying on this factory for half of its vaccines would be very risky especially without even inspecting it!
http://proliberty.com/observer/20001208.htmFrom the December 2000 Idaho Observer:
FDA approves potentially contaminated Medeva flu vaccine for
use in U.S.
<snip>
And now, because, public health officials claim, supplies of
influenza vaccine are in short supply this season, the FDA has
approved for sale in this country 20 million doses of flu vaccine that
may be contaminated with the prion protein crystal that causes mad
cow disease.
By Virginia Winston
Earlier this year, according to an October, 2000 article by the The
Observer, a leading British newspaper, British pharmaceutical
company Medeva's Liverpool plant was found by the U.S. Food and
Drug Administration to be producing vaccines in filthy conditions.
The FDA report found that Medeva neither maintained nor cleaned its
equipment. It also reported that Medeva was unable to prove that its
vaccines were not contaminated with bacteria or fungi.
<snip>
Because it exports flu vaccine to America, Medeva got a U.S. Food
and Drug Administration (FDA) “warning” to clean up its act.
However, in a report dated October 22, 2000, The Observer noted
that the FDA had not re-inspected the filthy Medeva factory since it
sent the warning letter earlier this year and has given the company the
green light to sell an estimated 20,000,000 doses of its “Fluvarin” flu
vaccine in the U.S. during this cold and flu season.
The British government recently recalled Medeva's oral polio vaccine
(OPV) as it had been grown from “bovine material of UK origin”
contrary to mandated vaccine production protocols. Until its removal
from the marketplace last month,
<snip>
The Medeva Fluvarin vaccine, produced in the same plant that
produced the recalled OPV, may have the potential of opening the
floodgates of a “mad cow” epidemic in the U.S.
http://www.observer.co.uk/ Go to “Information,” then “Archive,” then type “Medeva” in the
keyword box. See especially the October 22 article “Revealed: ful
scale of vaccine blunders.”
http://www.iht.com/articles/542541.htmlContamination problems were not new to the plant. Polio vaccines made there by
Medeva, another previous owner, before 1996 were recalled in October 2000 after British authorities said they might be contaminated with mad cow disease. In
1999, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration notified Medeva that there were risks of contamination in the flu vaccine produced at the plant.
http://www.science-enterprise.ox.ac.uk/html/PaulDrayson.asp After a year we identified our first target - a British pharmaceutical company, Medeva, that had been acquired by Celtech. Medeva contained a drug business and a vaccine business. ...we acquired Medeva in 2000. It employed about 600 people on a 14-acre site in Liverpool and its most important product was a flu vaccine.”
http://stg.syndnet.thomsonfn.com/InvestorRelations/PubNewsStory.aspx?partner=5425&storyId=97611 Total third-quarter 2003 revenues for PowderJect Pharmaceuticals, which Chiron acquired during the third quarter