aaannnthony - as far as I know, there are 2 major manufacturers of the inactivated flu vaccine currently - one being Aventis and the other being Chiron (the one that was shut down). I believe that this is worldwide but my data is from the US so I'm not entirely sure about that. There are only a few manufacturers of these vaccines simply because it's not exactly a high profit area - prices are controlled by the government to a large extent. I regret the shortage that will cause people that qualify for the flu vaccine and have a desire to get it to not be able to get their flu shot this year. If you qualify for FluMist (ages 5-49 and in good health), that may be a good option as Colleen has mentioned already. I was seriously considering having our clinic forego our allocation of flu shot vaccine for our providers/nursing staff and use FluMist for them instead to conserve the supply until I found out that the FluMist vaccination causes you to shed live virus for about a week afterwards which would prevent us from having any patient contact during that time (though it would have been nice to have had an enforced 1 week vacation!)

Charlene - yes, the flu is not technically associated with gastrointestinal symptoms though you can develop mild GI symptoms with the flu as well. There are a number of similar viruses that are out there that do have those symptoms but are usually not as severe as the influenza virus itself. Read what I said above about the FluMist vaccine and the shedding of live virus and keep an eye on your DH. :)

Masaki