In January 1976, a 19-year old solider died of pneumonia at Fort Dix, New Jersey. U.S. Army Private David Lewis was just one of many recruits afflicted by respiratory illness, but the cause of his pneumonia wasn't the Victoria virus, the dominant cause of human influenza since 1968. Rather, David Lewis' death was attributed to an unknown, a virus which the U.S. Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare (HEW) predicted would kill one million Americans in 1976.

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