Aounds ass backwards to me.
I would want a flu strain that no one is likely to be resistant to
INCLUDED in a vaccine, not excluded.


"Too_Many_Tools" wrote:

Scientists Scramble to Destroy Flu Strain

8 minutes ago

By EMMA ROSS, AP Medical Writer


The 1957 strain has not been included in the flu vaccine since 1968,
and anyone born after that date has no immunity to it.

Dr. Nancy Cox, chief of the influenza branch at the federal Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, said her agency was notified
of the situation Friday morning. She also said officials strongly doubt
someone deliberately planted the dangerous germ or that this was an act
of bioterrorism.

"It wouldn't be a smart way to start a pandemic to send it to
laboratories because we have people well trained in biocontainment,"
she said.

The concern over the shipment of pandemic flu virus to thousands labs
renews questions about the safe handling of deadly germs - an issue
that led to toughened U.S. rules after anthrax was sent in the mail in
2001, killing five Americans.

Most of the flu samples - 3,747 - were sent starting last year at
the request of the College of American Pathologists, which helps labs
do proficiency testing. The last shipments were sent out in February.


jk