About the swine flu in 1976 and H1N1 today: was Gerry Ford lying back then,

[hedgehog]

Poll question: About the swine flu in 1976 and H1N1 today: was Gerry Ford lying back then,

and are authorities today telling the truth?

[DemocratSinceBirth]

1. I'll Give Him The Benefit Of The Doubt And Say He Did What The "Experts" Told Him

He also got a shot himself.

[Buzz Clik]

2. You need another category:

• What the fuck are you talking about?

[vadawg]

4. yup i go with this, we need context on the poll...

[Jamastiene]

3. Pfft!

Of course, he was lying.

[stray cat]

5. What do you think they are lying about - that its the flu and acts like the flu? Its contagious?

that vaccinations against the flu can help keep you from getting ill or dying from it? That 35-40,000 Americans die each year from the flu or its complications. That you could get seasonal flu and H1N1 together or one after the other which doesn't sound very good. That the flu is caused by a virus and not evil spirits?

[hedgehog]

7. Many people even here believe that there is no special hazard from

H1N1 and/or the vaccine offers no protection and/or the vaccine is unsafe.

Now based on what I know , and I could be wrong, what happened in 1976 was this:

One or two trainees on an Army base got sick with a virus traced to swine flu virus. The President received word of this to give him advance warning of the possibility of an outbreak of a major killing flu epidemic. The warning was intended to raise alertness levels so if other cases developed, they would be identified and reported. It was recommended that if it was a killer flu and if it showed signs of spreading, then a massive effort be put forth to get people vaccinated. Instead of waiting to see how things developed, the Ford administration went full speed ahead to announce an epidemic of swine flu and urged people to get vaccinated to save their lives. There are suggestions that this was done to give a floundering administration some purpose other than pardoning Nixon.

As it happened, the only people to get the swine flu were the original two soldiers.

No one died from swine flu.

For some reason, either unknown to this day or not generally known by people not intensely involved with vaccine development, the swine flu vaccine in 1976 caused a number of people to develop a serious autoimmune reaction called Guillain-Barré syndrome. Not everyone who got vaccinated got sick, most people who develop Guillain-Barré have not been recently vaccinated. There have been no outbreaks of Guillain-Barré tied to seasonal flu vaccinations since then. Granted,if the reason for the connection is unknown, then it could happen again. Still, it didn't happen before 1976, it hasn't happened in the 32 years since.

So my poll was meant to find out what people think happened in 1976 (did Ford lie? Did he merely misunderstand the situation?) and what do they think is going on now (are authorities just trying to scare us? Are they lying when they say the vaccine is safe? )

Ultimately , the real question is whether the WHO and the Obama administration are both more knowledgeable and more trustworthy than past administrations?

[SidDithers]

6. 33 years is a long time in scientific and medical research...nt

Sid