Government doctors became alarmed when they discovered that at least soldiers on the base were infected without becoming ill. It recalled , when infected soldiers returning from the trenches of World War I triggered a contagion that spread quickly around the world, killing at least 20 million people. Fearing another plague , the nation's health officials urged Ford to authorize a mass inoculation program aimed at reaching every man, woman and child.
Within two months, people were affected, and more than 30 died. Amid a rising uproar and growing public reluctance to risk the shot, federal officials abruptly canceled the program Dec. In the end, 40 million Americans were inoculated, and there was no epidemic. Learn all about the basics of antigenic drift and shift. Learn more about how pandemic flu differs from seasonal flu. Explore the swine flu virus up close with a transmission electron microscope image.
Learn how deadly strains of the virus arise external icon. How do influenza viruses and art collide? Check out this Emerging Infectious Diseases issue exploring influenza A viruses through art and art that arose from great pandemics of the virus. Get up-to-date information from the Weekly U.
Influenza Surveillance Report. Watch this Ted-Ed video external icon explaining how viruses jump from animals to humans. Read all about it in this issue of Emerging Infectious Diseases. Explore the timeline of discovery and major breakthroughs in our understanding of the influenza virus.
Compare the spread of the virus over multiple flu seasons with these maps. What made the flu so deadly? Read the whole story and what we can learn moving forward. How much do you know about influenza? Interested in learning more about influenza?
Find self-study resources about influenza and vaccination. Still curious? The headlines would get worse. Right in front of their eyes. The stories, it would turn out, were false and misleading. Lawsuits, side-effects and negative media coverage followed, and the events dented confidence in public health for years to come.
What happened might even have laid the foundations for the mistaken anti-vax views and distrust in public health that would spread decades later. As the world rushes to roll out a vaccine to billions of people today, what might we learn from the ill-fated events of ? In February , several soldiers at Fort Dix fell ill with a previously unrecognised swine flu. None had been in contact with pigs, so human transmission was assumed. Testing revealed that the virus had spread to more than recruits.
The pandemics of and were still fresh in the memory, and fears soon escalated of another like influenza pandemic , which had killed tens of millions. Further investigation found that people under 50 years old had no antibodies to this new strain. Urgent decisions were needed. Public health officials realised it might be possible to get a vaccine to the public by the end of the year if they acted fast. The pharmaceutical industry had just finished manufacturing vaccines for the normal flu seasons.
They also had an animal advantage: roosters. The swine flu strain spotted at Fort Dix was not dangerous, and there would be no pandemic. Later, researchers discovered that benign swine flu strains had been circulating in the US population long before this one was identified at the military base.
And scientists who feared another Spanish flu did not know that the influenza was avian , not swine. Researchers at the time also suffered from a form of recency bias : based on experience from the s and 60s, they assumed major influenza pandemics happened on an year cycle, when they are actually more irregular. Outbreak fears began at Fort Dix army base.
A soldier there is given a standard vaccination a few years later Credit: Getty Images. So, as has happened throughout the Covid pandemic of , the scientists could only give the best advice they could based on incomplete knowledge. Many public health officials were sceptical and uncertain too, including Imperato in New York. As former president of the Institute of Medicine Harvey Fineberg concluded in a lacerating review of the events in , plenty of senior scientists supported the vaccine with pre-existing agendas.
As the US summer arrived, no outbreak had emerged nationally or internationally, but efforts continued nonetheless. Four pharmaceutical companies had begun production, and testing was underway in clinical trials.
But in June, there was a problem that would have far-reaching effects for years afterwards. It began when the industry manufacturers announced that they had been refused liability insurance, effectively downing tools.
They asked Congress to indemnify them, but were turned down. The swine flu virus under the microscope Credit: Getty Images. For weeks, this hampered the plans of local public health officials like Imperato, but crucially, also dented public confidence.
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