Why is Drug Company with 50 Years of Proven Safety Violations Using Taxpayer Money to Make Next Gen Flu Vaccine?

One of the more dangerous companies with a recurrent history of life threatening recalls is now in commissioned by government to make a new vaccine.

But can you really trust Baxter to produce a safe flu vaccine?

Baxter has a decades-long history of making mistakes that have led to recalls, lawsuits, and even deaths. So what guarantees do we have that they can produce a safe vaccine using a novel method?

As recently as May 18, a Baxter partner, Halozyme Therapeutics, publicly questioned the quality and capabilities of Baxter’s manufacturing processes, when flake-like particles were discovered in a product that Baxter packages for Halozyme.

That product, Hylenex, which is used with an injected drug that helps rehydrate sick children, was recalled on May 17 after the contamination was discovered.

This action came only two weeks after the FDA on May 3 announced a recall of Baxter’s Colleague infusion pumps, which deliver fluids such as nutrients and medications into a patient’s body. The recall was listed as Class I, defined as “a situation in which there is a reasonable probability” that the use of, or exposure to, the product in question “will cause serious adverse health consequences or death.”

It was Baxter’s fourth Class I recall this year, and the mainstream press paid very little, if any, attention to them. But the news literally flew around the world May 7, when a jury ordered Baxter to pay $144 million to a Nevada man who contracted hepatitis C from the use of a Baxter product during a routine colonoscopy.