Back in October 2000 the British government forced the withdrawal of an oral polio vaccine manufactured by Medeva out of concerns that it might be able to transmit Mad Cow Disease. This week, the government announced that the vaccine was safe and admitted the withdrawal was prompted by the government’s misunderstanding of its own regulations.
Many vaccines, including Medeva’s oral polio vaccine, use bovine serum as a growth medium. Hundreds of thousands of people received that vaccine and there was some concern and confusion within the British government as to whether or not Medeva had complied with laws designed to ensure the safety of medicines.
Back in 2000, the UK’s Medicines Control Agency claimed that chemicals derived from cattle tissue had been used in the production of the oral vaccine. Medeva told the government that no beef cattle tissue was used and its production process includes a step designed to eliminate cattle proteins, but the Health Minister ordered the withdrawal anyway.
In announcing that the vaccine was safe, British Health Minister Hazel Bears admitted that the Medicines Control Agency had given inaccurate advice because it misinterpreted the guidelines governing the use of animal products in vaccines.
The upshot of the withdrawal, of course, was simply to further feed anti-vaccination hysteria in Great Britain.
One side note. After claims about Mad Cow Disease and the polio vaccine surfaced, animal rights activists jumped all over this claim. Fascinating, isn’t it, that as soon as they think they might have a wedge issue they completely forget their “animal research never helped nobody” nonsense?
Source:
Polio vaccine ‘safe’. The BBC, July 5, 2002.
No risk to humans from recalled polio vaccine, government says. Associated Press, July 5, 2002.
Polio vaccine link to vCJD dismissed. The BBC, December 18, 2001.