A Comparison of the 1976 and 2009 Swine Flu Outbreak
Posted: Wednesday, May 06, 2009
by Jami Wright
In 1976 a young man in the military told his commanding officer that he wasn't feeling very well. But he continued to perform his daily duties. In less than 24 hours the young man was dead. Autopsy reports showed that he died from the Swine Flu, strain of influenza that has genes from both swine (pig) and the influenza. Further investigation on the military base reported that 500 other people had varying strains of the swine flu.
Within a short period of time the president was signing papers to enforce a "Mandatory" inoculation of all 220 million Americans. The decision was based on the similarities between the 1976 outbreak and the 1918-1919 outbreak of swine flu which killed 500,000 Americans and 20 million people world wide. The government had enough on their hands trying to get the country in order so instead of being unprepared they prepared for the worse.
The drug companies that would make the vaccines worried that there wasn't enough time to have the vaccines made before the start of next season. They feared that putting together the vaccine in such haste could result in side effects. Their arguments fell on closed ears. The decision was made. America was not going to lose many lives to another epidemic like the on in 1918-1919.
The vaccines were made and the inoculations started on schedule. As feared side effects started to show up, elderly people were dying hours or days after the inoculation, people were getting extremely sick, and some people were starting to show signs of nerve disorders. The inoculations were halted after about 40 million people were vaccinated. The effects were devastating to the American people and would be for years to come as people watched their love ones die slowly from nerve disorders brought on by the vaccinations.
To make matters worse the strain of influenza that hit America next flu season was not related to the swine flu. In total, one person died from the swine flu in 1976 and thousands of others were seriously injured or killed from the "preventative" inoculations. This went down as one of President Ford's worst decisions. But other's thought of this as a shining hour. The vote is still out on this question.
The differences this time around are from hard lessons learned. This swine flu has genes from swine influenza, human influenza, avian influenza, and swine. The strain is different. The spreading of this influenza is more pandemic (illness affecting more than one region) in nature. This is primarily due to the excessive routes of travel we have today.
The illness struck Mexico first killing over a hundred people. America set to work proactively to find carriers and treat the influenza with some anti viral's that are working. At the time of writing this article America has had outbreaks but no deaths. There are five other countries that have had break outs of the swine flu. Another difference is that American's seem to be better educated and more informed of what this outbreak is doing and how to protect themselves today than before.
Instead of jumping in and getting vaccinations made America is being proactive in finding and treating the illness. This avoids possible side effects later as seen in 1976. I believe fear impacted the decisions in 1976 and our president's twice since (avian bird flu a few years back) have avoided making the same mistake by allowing history to teach us. The break out is still in it's earliest stages so there may be ore differences and similarities to come. However, so far we are making progress.
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Top-level comments on this article: (2 total)Very interesting. I did not remember that so many people died from the innoculations in 1976! Let's hope we have learned something and can be proactive rather than reactive.
Jami,Very interesting write. A good share for your readers here on the Warp.
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