By Kelly Jad'on

Though not a new release, Flu: The Story of the Great Influenza is completely relevant to the 2009 Swine Flu, ready to be called a Pandemic at Level 6, states Keiji Fukuda, the World Health Organization's acting Assistant Director-General. 66 countries are now reporting cases of the H1N1 flu virus.

The situation is “moderate,” rather than “mild,” because severe cases have been limited. It is unknown how many people are truly infected. Fatality is possible in those with serious illness or who are pregnant. The virus continues to spread internationally, with some countries still in “transition.” The Southern Hemisphere is being carefully monitored.

Author Gina Kolata, a microbiology major in college, never studied the 1918 flu. She later wrote in her book’s forward, “The 1918 flu epidemic puts every other epidemic of this century to shame. It was a plague so deadly that if a similar virus were to strike today, it would kill more people in a single year than heart disease, cancers, strokes, chronic pulmonary disease, AIDS, and Alzheimer’s disease combined.”

In Flu, Kolata chronicles the beginnings of influenza in the United States, how it began in the spring of 1918, spreading around the globe and returning with a vengeance as a second wave in the fall of that same year. “The second wave of the 1918 pandemic still was highly contagious. But this time it was a killer.”

Treading heavily back to the historical origin of the virus—431 B.C., the author brings the reader forward to modern times, reporting on the research of swine flu and of its transmission.

Of considerable interest is a chapter titled “A Litigation Nightmare,” covering the issue of the swine flu vaccine—President Ford’s era. The question involved the predicament of whether or not to inoculate the United States population against a questionable impending return of the swine flu (1976). Millions of doses of the vaccine were created, but worries mounted. Was the immunization really necessary? Would the swine flu really return in the autumn as it did in 1918? Would the vaccine cause injury leading to lawsuits against the manufacturer? Kolata writes that President Ford asked Congress to appropriate $135 million for the production of enough vaccine “to inoculate every man, woman, and child in the United States.”

Fears mounted, the media questioned the efficacy of inoculating everyone. President Ford, himself, made his own immunization public to encourage the general population's confidence. (Photo included in the book.) The vaccination campaign ensued, and reports of side effects poured in: Guillain-Barré syndrome. The swine flu vaccination campaign was halted. Approximately 40 million people had been vaccinated, hundreds fell prey to Guillain-Barré, and the fearful pandemic failed to appear. "These things have haunted people...if a new virus gets identified or reappears, you don't want to jump the gun and assume a pandemic is happening." Kolata quotes the chief flu virologist at the Centers for Disease Control at the time, Dr. Keiji Fukuda.

The details of Kolata’s research into the history of swine flu in the United States are staggering. She explodes the myths and points out the truths. Swine flu follows us in waves through the course of generations—read Flu by Gina Kolata. A germane classic for all time.

5 Stars

A Classic Book Review: Flu: The Story of the Great Influenza Pandemic of 1918 and the Search for the Virus That Caused It (Simon & Schuster-Touchstone/ 2001) by Gina Kolata

 The Antiviral Shortage Predicament

Pandemic Phase 6: Are You Prepared?

 Vaccine Side Effects: Swine Flu History

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