This year’s flu vaccine has some consumers worried. While it might protect them against a potentially deadly virus, could they end up with salmonella instead?

The answer is no, according to the Food and Drug Administration and vaccine manufacturers.

No Return Hug: Genzyme today rejected the $18.5 billion takeover offer presented by French drug maker Sanofi-Aventis in a so-called “bear hug” letter, the WSJ reports. Genzyme, which has recently faced manufacturing problems, says it’s not “the right time” to sell, calling Sanofi’s offer an “opportunistic proposal with an unreasonable starting price.” Here’s the letter Genzyme sent to Sanofi.

You can’t watch network TV without being barraged by pharma and OTC drug ads — some best filed under “TMI.” (We live in fear of a Mucinex ad coming on while we’re eating our dinner in front of the tube).

But pharma and health-care companies haven’t yet planted that mammoth marketing footprint in the online world, and aren’t likely to for the next several years, according to a new report from research group eMarketer, which predicts U.S. online health-care and pharma online ad spending will grow by 10.6% this year to $1 billion and will reach $1.52 billion in 2014.

Reno, Nevada is a gambling mecca. But the biggest bet in town might be the one being made on a retrovirus called XMRV.

XMRV has been studied in labs around the world since a paper published last year in Science found a link between the retrovirus and chronic fatigue syndrome. And few places have put more money on X — as scientists often refer to it — than the Whittemore Peterson Institute for Neuro-Immune Disease in Reno, home to the scientists who led that research.

The Health Blog is continuing to track the latest news about the recall of more than 550 million eggs on fears of salmonella infection.

Yesterday the FDA said it believes the contamination is limited to the two producers already identified — Wright County Egg Co. and Hillandale Farms of Iowa. In an interview with the WSJ, FDA officials said those producers will need to draw up “detailed plans” on how they’ll avoid contamination in the future before being permitted to again ship eggs.

Women have a hard time remembering to consistently take their birth-control pills. Meantime, text messages and cellphones are being tested as a way to remind patients to take anti-HIV therapies, get tested for STDs, get some exercise and use sunscreen, among other health behaviors.

Sounds like a perfect combination of need and technology, right?

Here at the Health Blog, we’re keeping our eggs hard-cooked and keeping you up-to-date on the latest in the salmonella-associated egg recall.

Rosa DeLauro, the House’s loudest voice on food safety, has just asked the heads of the USDA and the FDA to explain what they knew — and when they knew it — about an egg producer linked to the salmonella outbreak.

Privacy Do-Over: Federal rules requiring health-care providers and insurers to report privacy breaches to patients only if there is a chance of significant financial or reputational harm are being rewritten by HHS following criticism from lawmakers and privacy advocates, the New York Times reports. Hospitals and insurers “generally support” the rules as written, but those who pressed for changing them say it shouldn’t be up to institutions to determine whether or not harm has occurred, the paper says.

Like many, we at the Health Blog had never really heard of potash until recently, when mining company BHP Billiton launched its hostile $38.6 billion bid for fertilizer maker Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan.

In the WSJ today, science reporter Gautam Naik explains what makes potash — the common name for different potassium-containing compounds — so essential.

Quality Control: Johnson & Johnson, dealing with the fallout from a series of product recalls, is creating a new quality-control executive slot and is instituting a reorganization of its manufacturing side, CEO William Weldon told the WSJ in an interview. The revamp is designed to unify quality standards across the company’s range of business units — including McNeil Consumer Healthcare, where the manufacturing problems have occurred, the WSJ reports.