Flu Shots…..and Agriculture?

I got my flu shot the other day.  It was relatively painless, and after filling out the form and getting the shot I got a Snoopy Band-Aid, and a Tootsie Roll.   That process is happening across the US, and especially in Illinois  (well,  maybe not the Snoopy Band-Aid) as we approach the dreaded flu season.

But as I was signing the form, the person behind me in line said---I’ll be you can’t link your flu shot back to agriculture.    Wrong---I bet I can……

You see the vaccine for the flu virus itself is incubated on the inside of a chicken egg.   Yes that is right---a chicken egg.   For the last 50 years or so---flu vaccines have been cultured inside a fertilized egg.   Although there are researchers looking to find ways to utilize other methods, right now, the egg is still the most widely used incubator for our vaccine strains.  That means plenty of planning ahead for the vaccine period where you need plenty (say 100 million--give or take a couple dozen!) eggs!  How do you build up this supply?  Where do those eggs come from?  It is all one of the mysteries that most folks don t think about-we just get our flu shot!

But say you were to get sick?  How about Penicillin and all the other medicines we take?   We’ll right here in Illinois --Peoria to be exact at the USDA Agricultural Research Service National Center for Agricultural Utilization Research-Doctor Andrew Moyer and others helped utilize a development of the deep vat fermentation method to bring the production of penicillin to consumer uses.  In fact, from 1940--the price of penicillin dropped from “Priceless” to just 55 cents per dose in 1946!    All of that and more is detailed in the USDA Publication “Science in Your Shopping Cart”.  You’d be amazed at how you use agriculture and ag research in your daily life!

Of course there is corn starch in the bandages--Snoopy ones included, and the Tootsie Rolls I got after my shot---well those too are an Illinois Product made in Chicago, with Corn Syrup and Soybean Oil.  Yes, believe it or not--Illinois Agriculture is all around you...even with your flu shot!