"The virus that caused the greatest world epidemic of
influenza in modern history – the pandemic of 1918-1919 – may have returned." Those
words, written by Harold Schmeck, appeared in pages of the New York Times not in the fall of 2009, but during the winter of
1976. A month later, on March 24 of that bicentennial year, President Gerald R. Ford asked Congress to provide immediate funding "for the production of sufficient
vaccine to inoculate every man, woman, and child in the United States."
Editor's Note: This is the second in a three-part series. Click here if you missed Part 1.
The day after President Ford's announcement, Dr. Harry Meyer
met with representatives of pharmaceutical companies and personnel from the
Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and the National Institute for Allergy and
Infectious Diseases (NIAID). Meyer, director of the Food and Drug
Administration (FDA) Bureau of Biologics (BoB), learned from drug manufacturers
that, in the words of one participant, "you couldn't possibly have 200 million
doses by fall".
There's Something
Wrong with the Vaccine
Doubts about its ability to produce enough swine flu vaccine
wasn't the pharmaceutical industry's only concern. During the summer of 1976, vaccine
manufacturers delivered an "ultimatum" to the CDC, demanding protection against
claims of adverse reactions. As then-CDC Director Dr. David J. Sencer later
recalled, this demand sent an "unintended, unmistakable message" to the
American pubic that "there's something wrong with the vaccine". Faced with an
epidemic, however, the federal government agreed to industry's indemnification
demands.
Soon after the National Influenza Immunization Program (NIIP)
began delivering flu vaccine to state health departments, another crisis of
confidence occurred. On August 2, 1976, a mysterious pneumonia-like illness sickened
over 250 veterans at an American Legion convention in Philadelphia. Although CDC researchers later
determined that the illness, Legionnaire's Disease, was caused by bacteria from
a hotel cooling tower, the media used the episode to hype fears of an
early-season flu epidemic.
The subsequent deaths of three elderly people who had
recently received the swine flu vaccine then caused the pendulum of public
panic to swing back towards fears about the vaccine itself. Ultimately, venerable
CBS anchorman Walter Cronkite scolded the media for sensationalism and shoddy
reporting.
This time, fears about the swine flu vaccine were unfounded – or were they?
Editor's Note: Part 3 of this series will run soon.
Resources:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125571271634890319.html
http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/eid/vol12no01/05-1007.htm
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=103642563
http://blogs.consumerreports.org/health/2009/04/the-swine-flu-epidemic-that-never-really-was-1976-swine-flu-outbreak.html
http://www.salon.com/env/feature/2009/04/28/1976_swine_flu/
http://www.amazon.com/epidemic-that-never-was-Policy-making/dp/0394711475
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