Beware of what’s coming through that needle

Eggs have been used to manufacture vaccines for more than 70 years. It is a slow, cumbersome process. For up to eight months, more than 500,000 fertilized chicken eggs per day are used as “mini-incubators” to grow crops of viruses. Using a labor-intensive method known as “candling,” each egg is examined by hand with a specialized light to ensure the chicken embryo is growing and the shell does not have cracks.

Three types of chicken tissue are used to manufacture egg-based vaccines:

  • Egg amniotic fluid: influenza vaccine (Fluzone, Fluad) and yellow fever vaccine
  • Egg ovalbumin: influenza vaccines (Afluria, Fluarix, Flulavel, Fluvirin, FluMist)
  • Chicken embryo fibroblasts: rabies, measles, and mumps.

Let’s look at the disgusting way chicken embryos are used to manufacture the flu shots, the MMR vaccine, and the less commonly used the yellow fever and rabies vaccines.

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