April 28, 2009
PARALLEL UNIVERSE: Let's Pray the Government Doesn't Repeat 1976 Swine Flu Vaccine Fiasco
By David M. Kinchen
Huntingtonnews.net Editor
The timing of the posting of my review of "Dread" by Philip Alcabes (link: http://www.huntingtonnews.net/columns/090421-kinchen-columnsbookreview.html) was perfect, but I can't claim any special psychic powers. The review was posted on April 21, just as the swine flu story was breaking.
So far, there have been no deaths in the U.S., in contrast to the 149 -- as I write -- recorded in Mexico. There have been 40 cases reported in the U.S. in California, Texas, Kansas, Ohio and New York, with only a few hospitalizations (as of mid-day Monday, April 27). The median age of those who have contracted the illness is 16.
The U.S. has issued travel warnings for Mexico, which seems to be the epicenter of this latest outbreak of swine flu. Almost all the cases seem to have some connection with Mexico. In the United Kingdom, officials have cautioned travelers about going to both Mexico and the U.S.
Alcabes, a public health professor at Hunter College of the City University of New York, discusses the 1976 swine flu, which officials likened -- mistakenly -- to the 1918 flu pandemic, which killed tens of millions worldwide:
"Testament to the force of germ theory to awaken innate anxieties about nature, the 1918 flu remains exhibit A when people seek to frighten us about potential virus-borne catastrophe today," he says. (Page 141). "Evidence came in the form of the swine flu affair, a 1976 federal campaign to immunize every American against a strain of flu that was, supposedly, identical to the 1918 strain. The effort ended, after only 45 million Americans had been immunized, because of a near complete absence of illness caused by the supposedly recrudescent flu strain and the possibility that the immunization induced an ascending paralysis called Guillain-Barre´syndrome in hundreds of vaccine recipients. The U.S. government paid out nearly $93 million in legal settlements and lost judgments to claimants who said they had been injured by the vaccine."
Alcabes suggests that the 1918 flu outbreak in the U.S. might not even have been "the Spanish Flu at all: it might have been a homegrown American product, the genetic recombination by which a garden-variety flu virus becomes one of those strains that can produce a lethal global outbreak possibly having taken place on farms in America's midsection."
Alcabes is a believer in immunization, even as he attacks the kind of fear-mongering that led to such disasters as the 1976 swine flu affair.
"The misuse of germ theory to incite anxiety or shake loose some funding, and the appropriation of germs to craft narratives about human dread, don't mean that the science behind microbe pathogenesis of human disease is wrong," he says in his book. "In the long run, germ theory has helped modern society deal with many forms of contagious disease, flu not least among them. We now have the capacity to create effective vaccines that limit illness and mortality, tailored to each new strain of flu that comes around...."
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PARALLEL UNIVERSE: Let's Pray the Government Doesn't Repeat 1976 Swine Flu Vaccine Fiasco
By David M. Kinchen
Huntingtonnews.net Editor
The timing of the posting of my review of "Dread" by Philip Alcabes (link: http://www.huntingtonnews.net/columns/090421-kinchen-columnsbookreview.html) was perfect, but I can't claim any special psychic powers. The review was posted on April 21, just as the swine flu story was breaking.
So far, there have been no deaths in the U.S., in contrast to the 149 -- as I write -- recorded in Mexico. There have been 40 cases reported in the U.S. in California, Texas, Kansas, Ohio and New York, with only a few hospitalizations (as of mid-day Monday, April 27). The median age of those who have contracted the illness is 16.
The U.S. has issued travel warnings for Mexico, which seems to be the epicenter of this latest outbreak of swine flu. Almost all the cases seem to have some connection with Mexico. In the United Kingdom, officials have cautioned travelers about going to both Mexico and the U.S.
Alcabes, a public health professor at Hunter College of the City University of New York, discusses the 1976 swine flu, which officials likened -- mistakenly -- to the 1918 flu pandemic, which killed tens of millions worldwide:
"Testament to the force of germ theory to awaken innate anxieties about nature, the 1918 flu remains exhibit A when people seek to frighten us about potential virus-borne catastrophe today," he says. (Page 141). "Evidence came in the form of the swine flu affair, a 1976 federal campaign to immunize every American against a strain of flu that was, supposedly, identical to the 1918 strain. The effort ended, after only 45 million Americans had been immunized, because of a near complete absence of illness caused by the supposedly recrudescent flu strain and the possibility that the immunization induced an ascending paralysis called Guillain-Barre´syndrome in hundreds of vaccine recipients. The U.S. government paid out nearly $93 million in legal settlements and lost judgments to claimants who said they had been injured by the vaccine."
Alcabes suggests that the 1918 flu outbreak in the U.S. might not even have been "the Spanish Flu at all: it might have been a homegrown American product, the genetic recombination by which a garden-variety flu virus becomes one of those strains that can produce a lethal global outbreak possibly having taken place on farms in America's midsection."
Alcabes is a believer in immunization, even as he attacks the kind of fear-mongering that led to such disasters as the 1976 swine flu affair.
"The misuse of germ theory to incite anxiety or shake loose some funding, and the appropriation of germs to craft narratives about human dread, don't mean that the science behind microbe pathogenesis of human disease is wrong," he says in his book. "In the long run, germ theory has helped modern society deal with many forms of contagious disease, flu not least among them. We now have the capacity to create effective vaccines that limit illness and mortality, tailored to each new strain of flu that comes around...."
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Make HNN Your Homepage (IE Users Only)
