http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/uk/scotland/newsid_609000/609459.stm The above URL leads to news article by the BBC detailing a shortage of TB medicine, I don't know if its Y2K related but it did ring the buzzer.

-- (doug_dickson@yahoo.co.uk), January 19, 2000

Answers

Doug,

Thank you for the post. I will look into this for you.

~Dee

-- Dee (T1Colt556@aol.com), January 19, 2000.

Doug,

TB vaccination funding comes primarily from the NIAID (National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Disease). It has been reported that current vaccines lack desired effectiveness and research has been ongoing for more effective vaccines.

The TB vaccine currently available, the bacillus Calmette-Guerin (BCG) vaccine, is made from a live, but weakened cousin of the TB bacterium. The effectiveness of BCG in adults has varied widely in large-scale studies. In addition, persons immunized with BCG often have a positive reaction to the tuberculin skin test, thus diminishing the usefulness of this valuable diagnostic tool.

NIAID-funded investigators recently made promising advances toward developing alternatives and improvements to the BCG vaccine.

I found this story to be quite curious for a variety of different reasons. It may take some time to research this more thoroughly. I am not quite sure I buy the "shortage" story even though it was released as such. I am wondering if the "shortage" of a component is actually a shortage of "available funds". All conjecture on my part, which is something I don't like to do, but there are some elements to this story that do not make sense to me.

Here is the link for NIAID:

National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Home Page

http://www.niaid.nih.gov/

I have an interest in this story and will continue to research it. It is certainly noteworthy if there is a shortage of a vaccine component because if it is something other than the bacterium, it would be a component used in other vaccines as well.

Hope some of this will help.

~Dee =)

-- Dee (T1Colt556@aol.com), January 19, 2000.

Reading the BBC news article, there seems to be confusion by the reporter between the TB vaccine (BCG, as correctly described above) and the skin test for TB infection, PPD (purified protein derivative). Tuberculosis is a complicated disease, and the media *always* seem to get the details wrong. I suspect from the way the article is written that there is a shortage of PPD for skin testing rather than a shortage of BCG vaccine. This is not so incredibly unusual, as periodic problems with PPD supplies have occurred from time to time over the years for many reasons. FWIW, it is a very "crude" pharmaceutical and does not really involve complex machinery to make--no computer-guided chemical synthesis out of a sci- fi movie here.

Overall, there is nothing from the BBC article and what I know of this issue to make me think this has anything to do with Y2K at all. Interesting post but in this case OT as best I can tell.

(Clarification for American readers, you should know that BCG vaccine is almost never used in the U.S. Also, I thought--perhaps mistakenly-- that BCG use had been curtailed in the U.K. some years ago, but I may be wrong on that. Finally, the photo shown by the BBC is likely a stock photo, that is not the way one usually injects these particular products.)

--Andre in southcentral Pennsylvania public health physician

-- Andre Weltman (aweltman@health.state.pa.us), January 20, 2000.

Andre,

Thank you for your information...excellent synopsis. I agree with you...sounds like the reporter may be confused.

Again, thank you Doug for posting the article. For those wanting additional information about TB, here is a link:

PUBLIC HEALTH FACT SHEET - Tuberculosis http://www.magnet.state.ma.us/dph/cdc/tuberc.htm

~Dee

-- Dee (T1Colt556@aol.com), January 20, 2000.