What Is In The Swine Flu Vaccine?

September 1, 2009 -- Question: What is in the swine flu vaccine?

Answer: The swine flu vaccine is two different kinds, the nasal spray and the injectable vaccine. The injectable vaccine is the virus itself which has been killed and then broken into pieces and only those parts that are important to be injected into us, in order to make a protection in our bloodstream, are included in the vaccine. So it's very very highly purified.

The nasal spray variety is actually rather remarkable; it's a live influenza virus that has been tamed. It can multiply only in the nose because if it gets down into the body where the temperatures are about a degree higher, it cannot multiply. We have, what's called, cold-adapted this virus. It can only grow in the lower temperatures right up here in the nose. So it stays there and then the body makes protection against it, so both are highly purified products.