Somebody at work the other day was complaining that the big bad government was all about people getting sick, or at the very least simply didn't care enough to make a vaccine for the swine flu any faster than 6 months.  I think the hyberbole was something along the lines of  "They're only making it at all so they can trick people into thinking that they are doing something.  They just don't want to spend the money, so they say six months is as fast as it can go."

I'm pretty sure this guy also thinks we didn't land people on the moon.  At any rate, I was surprised in the ensuing conversation to find out that a lot of people don't know that the majority of our vaccinations are still grown in chicken eggs.  Yup. GROWN. in CHICKEN EGGS.

The biggest challenge is to find a virus similar enough to the target strain to get a reaction from our immune system, but not so similar as to make us just as sick as if we'd gotten the illness.  Then they inject it into a fertilized egg (embryo) where the virus multiplies and grows for months before it it harvested, purified and sold.  Many vaccines require two eggs for an appropriate dose.  There are other methods for making vaccines, but this is the most established and widely used method.  And there is your science lesson for the day.