How would, say, Gerald Ford fight swine flu?
Glad you asked. There was another small outbreak of swine flu back in 1976, and President Ford sprang into action. Although there were only a handful of confirmed cases of the flu – all of them soldiers at Fort Dix, New Jersey – Ford ordered a flu shot for every single person in the country. It seemed like a good idea at the time; vaccinating the entire population could have headed off another pandemic like the one that shook the country in 1918. There were more than a few problems with Ford’s master plan, though. The particular vaccine that went out for this program had the potentially terrible consequence of triggering the development of the nerve disease Guillain-Barre syndrome. In the first two months of the program, 500 vaccinated people developed Guillain-Barre, which damages the peripheral nervous system and can lead to paralysis; over 25 of these patients died from complications related to the disease. While the flu was frightening, a potentially lethal or paralyzing nerve dise
