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FDA Licenses First At-Home Administered Influenza Vaccine

FDA Licenses First At-Home Administered Influenza Vaccine

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has licensed  the first of its kind live attenuated nasal spray influenza vaccine that can be administered at home. Adults up to the age 49 will be eligible to self-administer the FluMist Home vaccine or give it to their children two to 17 years old as long as they have a prescription.1

The intranasal vaccine, FluMist, manufactured by AstraZeneca, was licensed in 2003 for people aged five through 49, but the license was modified in 2007 to include children as young as two years of age. The pharmaceutical giant has contracted with a third-party on-line pharmacy to distribute the at-home intra-nasal vaccine. Patients will undergo a screening and if they meet the criteria will receive a prescription for the vaccine which will be mailed directly to their home.2

Despite the pharmaceutical company providing data in hopes of having the vaccine available  to be administered at home for this flu season, the FDA did not license it in time so FluMist Home will not be available until next flu season.3 4

Health Professionals Have Mixed Opinions About Novel Approach to Vaccination

Some health experts believe that this novel method of vaccination could increase influenza vaccination rates. Scott Roberts, MD, an infectious disease doctor at Yale School of Medicine opined:

This is the only needle-free option. Many who forego vaccination due to injection fears will be able to get vaccinated in a much easier way with self-administration”5

Andrew Handel, MD, a pediatric infectious disease physician, argued that Flumist may be more effective than the inactivated influenza vaccine (IAV) since it is a live virus vaccine, but he admits that not all studies agree with this conclusion.6

John Lowe, MD stated:

It has this advantage over the injection in that it can elicit a more physiological sort of interaction with the immune system than the injection, which simply presents the body with a dead virus for the body to form an immune response against it.7

Other healthcare professionals have expressed concerns that patients will fail to self-administer the vaccine properly thereby decreasing its effectiveness.8

FluMist Deemed Ineffective by the CDC in the Past

In 2016, the nasal vaccine briefly lost the recommendation of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) due to evidence that it provided “poor or relatively lower effectiveness” compared to other inactivated injectible influenza vaccines. The CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) had reviewed data from 2013 through 2016 and found that the FluMist Quadrivalent vaccine was merely three percent effective in preventing type A or B influenza in children.9

After AstraZeneca reformulated the vaccine in 2018, the live attenuated intranasal influenza vaccine was once again recommended by the CDC. However, the newer formulation has never been evaluated for effectiveness compared to other available influenza vaccines due to its limited use.10

FluMist Can Case Shedding and Transmission of Vaccine Strain Influenza Virus

Since FluMist uses a live weakened version of the influenza virus, immunocompromised individuals and pregnant women are not eligible for the new vaccine.11 Live virus vaccines can shed and transmit vaccine strain virus to other people12 There have been reports in the medical literature of cases where the FluMist caused shedding and transmission of vaccine strain influenza virus.13 A 2023 study in India showed that after one day of receiving a live attenuated influenza vaccine given intranasally, 71.2 percent of the recipients shed at least one of the influenza vaccine virus strains and 42.3 percent continued to shed virus on day four.14

AstraZeneca admits that the live virus intranasal vaccines have the potential to cause shedding of vaccine strain viruses on the product insert which reads:

Immune mechanisms conferring protection against influenza following receipt of FluMist Quadrivalent vaccine are not fully understood; serum antibodies, mucosal antibodies, and influenza-specific T cells may play a role. FluMist and FluMist Quadrivalent contain live attenuated influenza viruses that must infect and replicate in cells lining the nasopharynx of the recipient to induce immunity. Vaccine viruses capable of infection and replication can be cultured from nasal secretions obtained from vaccine recipients (shedding).15

An AstraZeneca representative said:

We’re working diligently to bring this ‘first-of-its-kind’ innovative and convenient self-administrated flu vaccine to consumers and look forward to launching FluMist Home as soon as next flu season.16


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Click here to view References:

1 McPhillips D. FDA approves first flu vaccine that can be self-administered at home. CNN. Sept. 20, 2024.
2 Contagion Editorial Team. FDA Approved: First Influenza Vaccine That Can Be Self-Administered. Contagion Live Sept. 20, 2024.
3 Tin A. FDA approves first self-administered flu vaccine spray. CBS News Sept. 20, 2024.
4 Ibid.
5 Malhi S. FDA approves first nasal spray flu vaccine for use at home. The Washington Post Sept. 20, 2024.
6 Schimelpfening NM. FluMist At-Home Nasal Flu Vaccine: How Effective Is It Compared to Regular Shots? Healthline Sept. 25, 2024.
7 Ibid.
8 Malhi S. FDA approves first nasal spray flu vaccine for use at home. The Washington Post Sept. 20, 2024.
9 TVR Staff. FluMist Nasal Spray Vaccine Doesn’t Work Says CDC Advisory Committee. The Vaccine Reaction July 6, 2016.
10 Tin A. FDA approves first self-administered flu vaccine spray. CBS News Sept. 20, 2024.
11 Ibid.
12 Parpia R. FluMist Vaccine Approved by CDC Without Proof It Works. The Vaccine Reaction Sept. 21, 2024.
13 Mallory RM, Yi T, Ambrose CS. Shedding of Ann Arbor strain live attenuated influenza vaccine virus in children 6-59 months of ageVaccine 2011; 29(26): 4322-7.
14 Dar L, Krishnan A, Kumar R et al. Nasal shedding of vaccine viruses after immunization with a Russian‐backbone live attenuated influenza vaccine in India. Influenza Other Respir Viruses June 2023; 17(6); e13149.
15 TVR Staff. FluMist Nasal Spray Vaccine Doesn’t Work Says CDC Advisory Committee. The Vaccine Reaction July 6, 2016.
16 Tin A. FDA approves first self-administered flu vaccine spray. CBS News Sept. 20, 2024.

7 Responses

  1. You Should at least post YOUR own opinion here at the end of this article so as to REINFORCE the fact that As We Already Know…….. this Shit is Bad For Us in the First Place and Still Has Nefarious Intentions and Results Behind It All The Way!!!!!! This almost looks like your’re promoting it, Without an Opinion to Steer People the Hell Away from this Stuff!!! That’s just my opinion and Sound Advise,……… Still Love What You Do Here-
    Tim in Cali-

  2. Want to know if this substance can be misted into the community coffee pot and make everyone sick or not. What substrate is used to encapsulate this virus? How is that dissolved? By water or heat? Can the substance be sprayed on items like refrigerated food or some other petri dish type effect to purposefully make people sick instead of this alleged vaccination effect? The concept is idiotic. The device will look just like a normal tube of flownase or some nasal spray substances people use regularly over the counter. If anyone confuses this they’ll go through the entire bottle without knowing. Or alternatively this will be another unjustifiable use of single use plastics with much higher than average bonded polymers which will never decompose or degrade in the environment. For every ‘administration’ or single misty spray of this item, there will be a large chunk of plastic in landfills somewhere. They could have grown more herbal tea and shared the wealth among each other, protected the environment. But no… Instead we are sold wasteful for profit scientific concoctions in novel single use plastic delivery formats. The fact that it’s FDA approved means somewhere, someone got paid. Tie this up nicely with the expected party line; To increase vaccination rates. Yes, that’ll do it. Brilliant.

  3. This is insane. So now you are going to let children and adults sneeze on everyone in public and shed and infect everyone around them with a live strain of virus. Hurrah for the vaccine companies.

  4. So the nasal mist causes a a stronger immune reaction, which means you get sicker after you take it and you are contagious up to 4-days later. Great for all those you expose without their knowing by shedding the virus to them.

  5. Shedding vaccines have been in the pipeline for a long time, and now they are here. The military was used to experiment with shedding vaccines years ago, if my memory is correct, and COVID-19 sheds also. What prevents someone from spraying this vaccine in an air vent? What prevents the pharma companies from producing a “at home nasal aerosol” vaccine that spreads something very deadly? The FDA approves whatever big pharma says, and products created to shed should be banned from the market. In view of the corruption, this will not happen.

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