The 1976 Swine Flu Scare
This and this should put the media’s sensational coverage in perspective. Turns out, we’ve dealt with this before:
On the cold afternoon of February 5, 1976, an Army recruit told his drill instructor at Fort Dix that he felt tired and weak but not sick enough to see military medics or skip a big training hike.
Within 24 hours, 19-year-old Pvt. David Lewis of Ashley Falls, Mass., was dead, killed by an influenza not seen since the plague of 1918-19, which took 500,000 American lives and 20 million worldwide.
Two weeks after the recruit’s death, health officials disclosed to America that something called “swine flu” had killed Lewis and hospitalized four of his fellow soldiers at the Army base in Burlington County.
The ominous name of the flu alone was enough to touch off civilian fear of an epidemic. And government doctors knew from tests hastily conducted at Dix after Lewis’ death that 500 soldiers had caught swine flu without falling ill.
Though the “vaccine” killed close to 50, the swine flu of 1976 ended up killing one person. [image via]
Update: 1976 Swine Flu Propaganda [via]
Swine Flu Public Handout after the jump…
image via
What! Dotty died?? Fuck.
Yes, everyone does get alarmist about these things, granted. But in all fairness, potential consequences considered, over-hype in this situation is not necc. condemnable simply from an idealistic standpoint. I mean realistically, it’s a hell of a lot more of a danger than many other issues we worry ourselves over.