WSJ: Vaccine Maker fined for smuggling Bird Flu

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WALL STREET JOURNAL

August 19, 2005

* * Vaccine Maker Fined for Smuggling Bird FluAs the virulent bird flu sweeping through Asia grabs global attention, a Maine biotechnology company that makes vaccines for poultry diseases has been fined $500,000 for smuggling a chicken-flu virus into the U.S., Nature reports. Vaccine manufacturer Maine Biological Labs in 1998 illegally imported the virus from Saudi Arabia so that it could develop a vaccine for a disease-plagued poultry farm in that country. According to court records, the following year the company used falsified documents to send 8,000 bottles of the newly created vaccine back to Saudi Arabia. "If the virus got out, it could have decimated poultry populations and cost billions of dollars," says Haffer, a vaccine consultant at Advantage Bio Consultants in South Dakota.

Meanwhile, the British Department of Health has decided that every doctor's office in Britain will be sent official instructions next month on how to handle an outbreak of bird flu as ministers step up their preparations for a global pandemic that -- if the worst fears are borne out -- could kill up to 50 million people. British ministers and officials have privately expressed the view that a bird-flu pandemic poses a greater threat than terrorism, the Financial Times reports. Doctors will receive a 50-page pamphlet from the country's chief medical officer describing the symptoms of bird flu and setting out how to contain a pandemic. Each office will also be given 50 copies of a leaflet for patients.

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