Feds seize smallpox vaccine from clinic injecting it into cancer patients
The US Food and Drug Administration has stopped a California company from continuing to inject the smallpox vaccine into the tumors of cancer patients.
Last Friday, US marshals seized five vials of the smallpox vaccine from San Diego-based StemImmune Inc, which was using them as part of an unproven method for treating tumors. (The FDA found out about the vials from previous StemImmune inspections.) Each of the vials included 100 doses of the vaccine, and one of them was partially used. The vaccine is not commercially available and is only reserved for people who are at very high risk for developing smallpox, so it’s not clear how StemImmune got the vials to begin with. Luckily, the vaccine is not made from the actual smallpox virus and…
