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(CNN) — Vaccine maker Sanofi Pasteur said Tuesday it shipped the first batch of H1N1 flu vaccine from its plant in Swiftwater, Pennsylvania, several days earlier than expected.

A single dose induces a strong immune response in healthy adults and children as young as 9.

Further shipments will be ongoing on a regular basis, with a total of 75.3 million doses expected through December, said Donna Cary, spokeswoman for the vaccine maker.

Citing security concerns, she would not divulge which of the distribution centers set up by the Department of Health and Human Services will get the first doses.

Sanofi Pasteur is one of four vaccine makers approved by the Food and Drug Administration.

“We will have enough vaccine available for everyone,” Kathleen Sebelius told the House Energy and Commerce Committee this month.

Tuesday’s shipment comes a few days before health officials had anticipated. This month, Sebelius had predicted that the large-scale vaccination program against H1N1 — also called swine flu — would begin in mid-October at as many as 90,000 sites, and that limited amounts of the vaccine were expected to be available a week to 10 days earlier.

A single dose induces a strong immune response in healthy adults and children as young as 9, though children younger than that may need two doses, she said.

Clinical trials are under way among pregnant women, who appear to be at heightened risk of dying from the disease.

Though researchers had originally expected it would take 21 days from the time of inoculation for the vaccine to induce an immune response robust enough to confer protection, they were pleasantly surprised when the first trials found that protection occurred in eight to 10 days for most people older than 9 years of age.

The two types of vaccine that have been approved — a flu shot made from inactivated or dead virus and a nasal spray made from live, weakened virus — will be available free of charge, though some providers may charge an “administration fee,” Sebelius said.

The last attempt to inoculate the U.S. population against a type of swine flu occurred in 1976 after some 200 soldiers from Fort Dix, New Jersey, became infected. Though the flu never spread, some 40 million Americans got the vaccine, which was blamed for hundreds of cases of Guillain-Barre syndrome, an autoimmune disorder that causes severe muscle weakness.

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Pittsburgh Braces for More Protests

Security forces are bracing for a large “Peoples’ March,” through downtown Pittsburgh, as G-20 protesters regroup and converge a few blocks from where summit leaders are meeting. Read the full story

1 – Project X-Ray

In the early years of American involvement in WWII, a plan was conceived by a Pennsylvanian dental surgeon to strap tiny incendiary devices to bats and drop them by the thousands over Japanese cities. The bats—able to carry nearly three times their own body weight—would fly under the cover of night and take roost in traditional, highly-flammable wood and paper Japanese houses. As dawn approached, timers on the devices would ignite the “bat bombs” and entire cities would burn to the ground without the loss of life accompanied by, say, an atomic attack. The project was slowed by many complications and was ultimately shut down in 1944 because the bats would not be ready for combat until 1945. Read the full story

(CNN) — A gunman walked into an LA Fitness gym outside Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, turned off the lights and fired off 50 rounds, killing three women before killing himself Tuesday evening, police said.

The man didn’t speak but was carrying a gym bag with a note inside it. He was found dead in the gym lying on top of one of his guns near a victim, said Charles Moffatt, Allegheny County police superintendent. Read the full story