What Exactly Happened in the Last Swine Flu Epidemic?
In February 1976 the swine flu virus emerged from the autopsy of a soldier named Private David Lewis at Fort Dix, New Jersey. Private Lewis died within 24 hours of reporting his illness and it became apparent that 500 soldiers were infected but none were ill. Medical experts were quick to compare it with the epidemic of 1918, when soldiers returning from World War 1 were infected. The 1918 Spanish Flu spread around the world very quickly, causing the death of at least 20 million people. With this in mind, US health officials recommended President Ford to order a mass inoculation program. The 45 million vaccination program began in October 1976, costing the Government $135 million ($500 million in today’s equivalent). Within a couple of weeks, there were many reports of inoculated people developing a disease called Guillain-Barre Syndrome. This is a very rare neurological condition where the host’s immune response causes damage to the outside walls of nerve cells. This process causes te
