• J Hist Med Allied Sci · Oct 2010

    Historical Article

    WHO knows best? National and international responses to pandemic threats and the "lessons" of 1976.

    • George Dehner.
    • Department of History, Wichita State University, Wichita, Kansas 67260-0045, USA. george.dehner@wichita.edu
    • J Hist Med Allied Sci. 2010 Oct 1; 65 (4): 478-513.

    AbstractThe discovery of a novel influenza strain at Fort Dix, New Jersey, in 1976-dubbed Swine Flu-prompted differing responses from national and international health organizations. The United States crafted a vaccination campaign to inoculate every citizen; conversely, the World Health Organization (WHO) recommended a 'wait and see' policy. An examination of the WHO conference that issued the influenza policy reveals the decision was driven by the limits of its member states' ability to produce inactivated vaccine and concern over the premature use of unstable live-virus vaccines. The WHO recommendation's reliance upon an uneven surveillance system would have replicated the 1957 and 1968 vaccination failures if a pandemic had appeared.

      Pubmed     Full text   Copy Citation     Plaintext  

      Add institutional full text...

    Notes

     
    Knowledge, pearl, summary or comment to share?
    300 characters remaining
    help        
    You can also include formatting, links, images and footnotes in your notes
    • Simple formatting can be added to notes, such as *italics*, _underline_ or **bold**.
    • Superscript can be denoted by <sup>text</sup> and subscript <sub>text</sub>.
    • Numbered or bulleted lists can be created using either numbered lines 1. 2. 3., hyphens - or asterisks *.
    • Links can be included with: [my link to pubmed](http://pubmed.com)
    • Images can be included with: ![alt text](https://bestmedicaljournal.com/study_graph.jpg "Image Title Text")
    • For footnotes use [^1](This is a footnote.) inline.
    • Or use an inline reference [^1] to refer to a longer footnote elseweher in the document [^1]: This is a long footnote..

    hide…