An FDA expert committee will gather next week to consider the case for Sanofi Pasteur's experimental bird flu vaccine. Of course, as Sanofi is quick to point out, it can't tell for sure which strain of bird flu could emerge to cause a pandemic. It can only guess at this point. But it's the first drug developer to make it to this stage of the regulatory process in the U.S. Some 160 people have died from H5N1, most through direct contact with sick birds. Governments around the world, though, have been stockpiling Tamiflu as well as Sanofi's vaccine in case the virus should mutate into a strain that is easily communicated among humans.
- here's the report on the vaccine from CNN
ALSO: Following an uproar in the scientific community, Indonesia has resumed giving avian flu samples to the WHO. Report