Big tobacco wants a cut: H1N1 Vaccines to be made from tobacco plants?

The following is a faithful translation of an article on Norwegian TV station TV2s web page. I am not the author of this text, nor do I profess to have the rights to it, so if the rights holders ask me to take it down I will. Any strange grammar or turns of phrase are probably present in the original Norwegian text. Trust me, it was messy.
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Tobacco can save the world’s vaccine requirements  [sic]
Norwegian virologist is doing research on tobacco plants to grow enough H1N1 vaccine.

The world famous virologist Lars R. Haaheim, who has developed pandemic emergency plans for Norway and the WHO, is researching tobacco plants to grow enough vaccine to cover the world´s needs.

Far more have died of swine flu in Norway than in our neighboring countries.

“Everyone should take the vaccine”
Because around a third of those who have died of swine flu were otherwise healthy everyone should take the vaccine to provide “herd protection”, said Haaheim. He characterizes the skepticism towards the vaccine as nonsense. He is himself researching quicker ways to produce vaccines.

Authored WHO pandemic plan
For several decades the authorities, media and researchers in Norway, the European Union and the United States have asked Haaheim for advice. The Norwegian had developed a pandemic plan for Norway back in 1998, and for the World Health Organization in 1999.

“It is always easy to accuse the authorities and I have probably been somewhat critical in the beginning because of some exaggerations. But when it´s a fact that the virus is here, and it´s takoing the lives of otherwise healthy individuals we must take it seriously,” says Haaheim.

Unusual pandemic
The researcher has just returned from a year as a researcher in the U.S. – he was close to the initial outbreak:

“This is what all virologists want once in a lifetime, namely, to experience a pandemic. It is almost horrible to say it,” he admits.

The most surprising is that the pandemic, this time not due to a new virus, but a virus that has hit the world before. Furthermore, it is new that the swine flu can affect otherwise healthy young people hard.

“Among us over 60, a fifth or a fourth already have an immunity to this virus. Those who are severely affected are people who are not would think could handle this infection so bad,” says the 64-year-old.

He therefore believes everyone should take the vaccine against H1N1 to ensure herd immunity – that most are immune to the insidious virus.

Lack of vaccine
But the world can´t produce enough vaccine to meet demand. It takes at least six months to produce vaccine based on virus grown in fertilized hens eggs.

The past year Haaheim has studied how one can achieve faster vaccine production – in larger quantities.

Tobacco plants provide more vaccine
He said tobacco plants are very suitable for vaccine production:

“There are no infectious agents in plants that can pass to us humans. When what we call the swine flu came, we got the gene sequences submitted from CDC in the United States on a Sunday. Then the tobacco plants were prepared, and in the course of a week the trial production started. It was very quick.”

Insects and bacteria are other possible hosts to cultivate a virus that can be used for vaccine production on a large scale.

“Then time is reduced by at least half, and also the amount you get is far greater,” says Haaheim.

Vaccines do not provide lifelong immunity
But sceptics ask us to stop. The British physician Richard Halvorsen, author of the book “The truth about vaccines,” says the vaccines provide limited protection and can make us vulnerable later:

“The increasing number of vaccines we take in our lifetime can have detrimental effects on future generations. The
vaccines do not provide lifelong immunity, but the effect diminishes over time. The diseases do not. The vaccines means that we can become susceptible to the same disease at a later time, when we are older and more vulnerable,” says Halvorsen.

“Nonsense.”
But Haaheim says the best protection – also for the future´s elderly – is that as large a part of the population as possible can be inocculated so that the virus is not spread on a larger scale, posing a real risk.

“Many are afraid that these vaccines will make us more helpless, bu thats’s also rubbish, we face a plethora of bacteria all the time. The body is working out every day so that we do not have to get serious illnesses. I do not think there is an immunological limit to how many vaccines we can take, but there´s probably a practical and economic limit,” the researcher says.

Haaheim calls it is sad that some individuals still do not want to take the vaccine:

“Some people has developed regular conspiracy theories; that health authorities are in league with pharmaceutical manufacturers, but that’s the purest nonsense. That people fall for such things, this surprises me.”

He warns against believing everything that is blogged:

“I’ve seen some of that rubbish. I call them keyboard flashers who spew out ramblings from the world of fiction on the web.”

Nasal spray against swine flu
The United States has allowed vaccine in the form of nasal spray against swine flu. It has not been approved in Europe, with the exception of Russia, because the nasal spray contains live viruses.