The nurse is wrong. Like many so called 'health professionals" they are mis informed. It is still supposedly 'experimental', according to this article.
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Traditionally, influenza vaccines are produced in fertilized chicken eggs. Eleven days
after fertilization, the influenza virus – each strain is grown separately – is injected
into the eggs and accumulates in the fluid surrounding the embryo. A high-yielding
donor strain is co-injected. The embryo becomes infected so that the virus can
multiply. After several days of incubation, machines open the eggs and harvest the
virus. Then the virus is carefully purified, chemically inactivated and used to produce
the vaccine. On average, between one and two eggs are needed to produce one
dose of vaccine. The entire production process lasts at least six months.
An alternative way of producing flu vaccine is based on cell or tissue cultures.
This
method of production was first described in the mid-nineties and is still in its
experimental stage, yet all major players in the vaccines industry have embarked on
development. Mammalian kidney cells are preferably used for these cell cultures.
The virus is injected into these cells, which multiply as the virus does in them, before
the the cells’ outer walls are removed ,harvested, purified and inactivated. This
process resembles a biotechnological fermentation, in which you move from small
liter jars to huge fermenters during production. It is not unusual to produce vaccines
in cell cultures; polio vaccine, for example, is made this way. Yet the development of
such a cell culture -based production is a long and arduous process, namely in terms
of its efficiency, standardization and validation.
http://www.gsk.com/press_archive/pre...ckgrounder.pdf
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