Swine flu vaccine left over from the winter 2009/2010 vacination campaign expires these days and therefore has to be disposed. Due to the content of mercury added as Thimerosal (also known as Thiomersal) to most of the vaccines that depending on the manufacturer can reach 25-50 ppm in the vaccine, the left overs have to be handled as "hazardous waste".Even as health officials are warning of a possible third wave of the H1N1 virus, or swine flue, this spring, millions of doses of surplus vaccine are about to be destroyed. In the US, only 90 million of the 162 million vaccine doses produced were administered and much of the unused vaccine has expired or soon will.
"The (vaccine) products have various expiration dates, depending on when they were produced," said Tom Skinner of the national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Normally leftover flu vaccine is shipped to the state health department. But since the swine flu vaccine program was through the federal government, no one is sure what to do with the leftover vaccine ... READ MORE HERE
