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The US Has Bird Flu Vaccines. Here’s Why You Can’t Get One
H5N1 vaccines have been previously licensed, and millions are in the national stockpile. But even with the news of the country’s first human death due to bird flu, vaccination isn’t yet recommended.
“At the moment, from the point of view of severity and ease of transmission, it does not seem like an imperative to get a vaccine out to protect humans,” says William Schaffner, a physician and professor of preventive medicine at Vanderbilt University in Tennessee. The Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response, part of the Department of Health and Human Services, manages a national stockpile that has face shields, gloves, respirators, and goggles available to farms that need them. More than 40 million Americans received the vaccine in record time, but the shot caused a slightly increased risk of Guillain-Barré syndrome, a rare form of paralysis that is usually reversible but occasionally fatal.
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