Bird Flu -- AI looks swine-like

PASADENA - With all the attention focused on bird flu and its possible dangers, it seems a good time to revisit a similar episode 30 years ago, when experts thought the nation was on the brink of a deadly swine flu epidemic.

The alarm sounded Feb. 5, 1976, when Pvt. David Lewis, 19, of Ashley Falls, Mass., became ill at Fort Dix, N.J., and died the next day.

An autopsy indicated Lewis's death was caused by swine flu. A strain of swine flu was believed to have mutated, gaining the ability to infect people, and to have caused the flu pandemic of 1918-19.

That epidemic was initially estimated to have killed 21 million people worldwide, including 500,000 Americans.

The nation's pharmaceutical companies started a crash program to make enough vaccine for the start of the flu season in October, even though the Fort Dix disease grew poorly in the chicken egg growth medium used for flu viruses.

The vaccine was free to anyone who wanted it.

In California, 2.5 million people, 17 percent of the population in 1976, took the vaccine between Oct. 1 and Dec. 2. Nationwide, more than 45 million people were inoculated.

But problems appeared almost immediately. Health officials noticed a link between the swine flu vaccine and an increased risk of developing Guillain-Barre syndrome, a rare form of paralysis.

The worldwide epidemic never occurred, and Lewis was the only person known to have died of swine flu.

Emanuel Parker can be reached at emanuel.parker@sgvn.com or at (626) 578-6300, Ext. 4475.