How is a flu vaccine developed?

The developers of the flu vaccine use past virus to determine the composition of today's virus. 

The flu vaccine isn't just thunk up and manufactured for the purpose of allowing danger to those that need it the most. Past vaccine are combined with some statistical analysis to combine the virus RNA to provide coverage stimulation of the healthy immune system to bring about antibodies that will be needed when and if anyone is exposed to this year's virus.

Introduction to flu virus (click here)

There is always a chance the virus will manifest in a way that is uncharacteristic to the RNA used in the vaccine. Evidently, this year is one of those years. There are virus known to be dangerous like the avian flu, or the swine flu so there is plenty of proof the flu virus is not static. It changes.

The 1918 influenza pandemic (click here) was the most severe pandemic in recent history. It was caused by an H1N1 virus with genes of avian origin. Although there is not universal consensus regarding where the virus originated, it spread worldwide during 1918-1919. 

In the United States, it was first identified in military personnel in spring 1918.

It is estimated that about 500 million people or one-third of the world’s population became infected with this virus....

National Flu Activity Map (click here)

If a person is high risk for adverse health contracting any virus or bacteria, there are always masks to wear.

But, this leads into a bigger issue, it is the fact the Trump Administration has cancelled the vaccines for bird flu. Chickens and turkeys and the like.

To introduce my concern is this article from the lands down under.

17 May 2025

By Tom Hartley and Richard Mockler

...Virus Ecologist Dr Michelle Wille (click here) said the impacts on the animals before death are shocking.

“It’s really targeting the brains of these animals,” she said.

“Animals are having neurological [symptoms], and that’s not just the marine mammals like the elephant seals, that’s the birds too,” she explained....

The point is the virus as it stands today can cross species lines, maim, and kill. A few years ago dairy cows (click here) in the USA were infected with the virus and pieces of the RNA were found in milk. It was not transmissible to human beings from pieces of the virus, but, it was a concern. 

This is the correct way to look at this in deciding if the vaccine is important. The word is mutation. There is nothing to say when a virus crosses species lines it won't mutate and continue to infect that species. As a matter of fact the RNA will incorporate the information of the species DNA and go forward in a different form to continue to infect that species. We saw this capacity with COVID-19. There was Omnicron and all the variants. Today there are still more variants, too.

Is it not better to be safe than sorry? I think it is. I was raised that way. 

The vaccine stopped by the Trump Administration was to be issued to the animals most likely to contract the virus. It is not a human vaccine. In vaccinating the animals and preventing their illness we are preventing the chance of mutation and potentially real danger to people.

I realize the words "chance" and "potential" are fighting words to this administration. They should be. The ability of that virus to mutate is real. We have seen it in the past with other viruses. People of the USA paid for the research and the manufactured product ready to administer is on the shelf but being withheld. It is a ridiculous situation and one that should not exist in the USA.

Vaccinating animals keep them healthy and in turn keep us healthy. There is nothing wrong with that, and, everything right with it.

Texas Paul gave me a chance to be on my soap box. I think that is a good thing, too.