The Baxter live flu virus issue pertains to the inadvertent dispatch of live avian flu to 18 countries by Baxter International Illinois. They did so by mixing the virus with their vaccines, despite stringent bio-safety laws designed to make such an error impossible. What made the event alarming is that the cross contamination could have led to a global avian flu epidemic. Fortunately, a lab that received the vaccine used ferrets to test it and spotted the cross contamination, subsequently averting a major pandemic.