Swine Flu 2

We've been here

  • The rush to make vaccines for a flu virus to which we have no immunity is not a new concept.
  • This is what happened during the swine flu fiasco of 1976, when the fear of another killer outbreak provoked a national political response and a rushed vaccination program.
  • More than 40 million people received the swine flu vaccine that year against a new pig virus that ultimately never took hold.
  • It was later determined that the swine flu wasn't as virulent or as deadly as originally thought.
  • But more than 1,000 cases of Guillain-BarrĂ© syndrome, a life-threatening ascending paralysis, occurred in those who received the vaccine, which had been rushed into production.
  • The public relations nightmare and lawsuits against the government helped to drive many drug companies away from making flu vaccine at all. (Of 27 companies that manufactured flu vaccines at the time, only three still do.)

The Sky is Falling: An Analysis of the Swine Flu Affair of 1976

  • In 1976, due to an outbreak of influenza at Fort Dix, New Jersey, the United States set a precedent in immunology by attempting to vaccinate the entire population of the country against the possibility of a swine-type Influenza A epidemic.
  • While a great many people were successfully immunized in a very short period of time, the National Influenza Immunization Program (NIIP) quickly became recognized as a failure, one reason being that the feared epidemic never surfaced at all.

What is a pandemic?

  • Influenza virus A causes yearly epidemics that result in illness for humans, pigs, and domestic poultry.
  • We now know that intra-species transmission is the norm.
  • Indeed, pandemics are global epidemics among humans caused by the transmission of novel influenza A viruses generated via inter-species transmission.
  • Pandemics are no longer thought of as tornadoes that suddenly thrust themselves upon human populations.
  • Rather, we now know that herald epidemics in non-human and human species occur for variable amounts of time before a pandemic takes root.
  • Thus, surveillance among human, swine and bird populations has become essential for early detection of viruses with pandemic potential and for initiation of prevention efforts, particularly vaccine development.

Is this being overblown and not a real threat?
It is hard to say for sure though as we are being bombarded with mixed messages.
Regardless people should be cautious as there is certainly no harm in exercising reservation.
Have your say.
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