BushCo and Big Pharma: What a team!

The Food and Drug Administration approved the United States' first human vaccine for bird flu Tuesday, saying it could slow a possible pandemic despite its modest effectiveness....

Sanofi's vaccine, based on a virus isolated in Vietnam, will not be available commercially. The federal government has already secured about 6.5 million doses of the vaccine....

The federal stockpile also includes about 6.5 million doses of another Sanofi vaccine, based on an H5N1 strain from Indonesia, that has not yet received FDA approval.

Yeah that's right, Bunky. It's modestly effective (or not approved at all) and 100% government issue - brought to you by the folks who don't believe in health care. But don't worry, you probably won't get any anyway...

Even if every vaccine manufacturer in the world turned all its production efforts toward producing the H5N1 shots, he said, they would churn out only enough to vaccinate 12 million to 20 million people a year — a fraction of what is needed in the U.S., let alone the world.

I say we eat the chickens before they kill us all.

Link: FDA approves bird flu vaccine - Los Angeles Times