If you are going to make a stall, you have to break some eggs. If you want to give the United States a flu vaccine, you must break about 100 million eggs. This situation may one day be changed. The current leading manufacturers of vaccines are studying the possibility of culturing influenza virus from cell strains from humans, monkeys, and dogs without using eggs and replacing them with stainless steel culture flasks. This technology enables pharmaceutical companies to prepare vaccines faster and easier, and to respond more quickly to emergencies. The current method of making influenza vaccines in fertilized eggs was developed 50 years ago. The practice is to drill a hole in the eggshell, inject the influenza virus into the liquid around the embryo, and then re-close the eggshell to infect the embryo, thereby generating a virus, which is then collected and purified for preparation of the vaccine. . Samuel L. Katz, a member of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's Vaccine Advisory Committee and of the Duke University School of Medicine, believes that even with automated equipment, "it is tedious to deal with eggs, and opening a flask is much simpler. Dinko Valerio, chairman and chief executive of biotech company Crucell, which develops human cell lines, points out that another benefit of doing so is that the use of cells can save the production process several weeks. Now when a new influenza strain is discovered, Researchers often need to experiment with viruses to make them replicate in eggs.If producers use cultured cells, they can skip this step and save time, which can even be isolated from humans. The virus directly began to make vaccines, added Michel DeWilde, executive vice president of research and development at Aventis, adding that there is an additional benefit that viruses obtained from cells rather than eggs may be more similar to humans and are therefore more suitable As a raw material for preparing vaccines, Aventis is the world’s largest flu Seed makers, but also Crucell, a partner in the development of influenza vaccines from human cells. Roland A. Levandowski of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration believes that vaccines made from cell culture vessels are better than those prepared in eggs. It remains to be seen.†Richard Webby, a virologist at the St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee, believes that in the normal flu season, people who take a shot on a arm don’t care where the vaccine came from. "Webby said: In the event of a global epidemic, the use of cells to produce vaccines will be invaluable. If a new influenza strain suddenly emerges during the non-influenza season, for example, one is different from the early ones and people are not. Immune strains, then systems that use cells to make vaccines will allow health officials to respond faster. He explained: "Cell culture can more easily and quickly increase production." Technicians can simply take the freezer The cells are moved into large containers to cultivate them, which cannot be done with eggs, although in a clean environment The chickens raised in the country are basically all year round, but pharmaceutical companies generally issue orders for egg purchases six months before the vaccine is prepared, and if it is to prevent a pandemic, it may require 10 times more than the normal flu season. Vaccine: Wayne Morgex, vice president of Baxter Inc. in Deerfield, Ill., said: “If you’re halfway through the production process, you’ll need more than 100 million eggs, and by then you’ll have nowhere to go. Finding.†The use of cell culture to prepare vaccines is not a new technology. For example, the current production of polio vaccines by Aventis and Baxter’s current production of flu shots are based on the same monkey kidney cells, and Baxter’s Monkey cell strains were also used to prepare smallpox vaccines to supplement the deficiencies in U.S. supply. Therefore, Katz said: The system that uses cells to make vaccines is to "make the production of influenza vaccines into the 20th century at the beginning of the 21st century." Why did it take so long for manufacturers to think of systems that use cells to make vaccines? Webby believes that maybe the current system of making vaccines from eggs works so well. The up-front costs required to build a production plant that uses cells to make lean produce are higher than in production plants that use eggs to make vaccines. This may also be an obstacle. The United States will not begin clinical trials of cell-prepared flu vaccines before the fall of 2004. If approved, these new vaccines will likely be used first as supplements to those prepared using eggs. These flu vaccines, with several different formulas, probably won't hurt anything except that they cause muscle pain that lasts for a day or two after you roll up your sleeves.