How flu shot manufacturing forces influenza to mutate

It seems that the flu vaccine is being less effective. According to an article in ScienceDaily, this phenomenon is credited to the use of chicken eggs to develop the influenza vaccine. Researchers observed that using chicken eggs has began to weaken the main place where the antibody and the virus surface bind. This finding comes from research conducted at the Scripps Research Institute. It also turns that the use of chicken eggs and inputting the flu vaccine in chicken eggs has been a practice going on for more than seventy years in the scientific community.

For specifically the H3N2 strain of influenza, the use of chicken eggs to develop a vaccine has been a particularly alarming issue. So much so that, current vaccines are only found to be 33% effective against the H3N2 strain of influenza. A mutation occurs within the vaccine, such that antibodies developed by human body’s immune system due to vaccination can no longer protect against H3N2 strain of influenza that someone might be exposed to in the environment. So, this article calls for greater research to be done on influenza, specifically on the process of making flu vaccines.

- Eyasu Kebede

Source: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/10/171030134625.htm