It’s OK to use nasal spray flu vaccine again, U.S. panel says

NEW YORK — It’s OK for doctors to start using a kid-friendly nasal spray flu vaccine again, a federal panel said Wednesday.

Two years ago, the advisory group pulled its recommendation for FluMist vaccine after research found it wasn’t working against swine flu, the kind of flu that was making most people sick then. But the Advisory Committee of Immunization Practices voted 12-2 Wednesday to recommend the nasal spray as an option for next winter’s flu season.

An official from AstraZeneca, the company that makes FluMist, said the problem with the vaccine has been identified and corrected. But panel members noted there’s still not good proof that FluMist works well against the swine flu bug.

“This is not an easy decision. It’s always a challenge to make a decision with incomplete data,” said one panel member, Dr. Edward Belongia of the Wisconsin-based Marshfield Clinic Research Foundation.

The panel makes its recommendations to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which usually accepts the advice and sends guidelines to doctors .

FluMist is the only spray-in-the-nose vaccine on the market. Unlike shots made from a killed virus, it is made from a live but weak virus.

The AstraZeneca product was once considered the best childhood flu vaccine on the market and accounted for about a third of all child vaccinations. But in 2016, the committee rescinded its recommendation of FluMist after federal study results showed it provided no protection from the 2009 swine flu strain that made most people sick the previous year.