The flu season is upon us. Which type will we worry about this year? And what kind of shots will we be told to take?
Remember the swine flu scare of 1976? That was the year the U.S. government told us all that swine flu could turn out to be a killer that could spread across the nation.
And Washington decided that every man, woman and child in the nation should get a shot to prevent a nationwide outbreak, a pandemic.
Well, 46 million of us obediently took the shot. And now 4,000 Americans are claiming damages from Uncle Sam amounting to $3.5 billion because of what happened when they took that shot.
By far the greatest number of the claims, two-thirds of them, are for neurological damage or even death, allegedly triggered by the flu shot.
We picked up the story back in 1976 when the threat posed by the swine flu virus seemed very real indeed.
This virus was the cause of a pandemic in 1918 and 1919 that resulted in over half a million deaths in the United States as well as 20 million deaths around the world.
See how easy it is to...
Thus the U.S. government's publicity machine was cranked into action to urge all America to protect itself against the swine flu menace.
Influenza is serious business. During major flu epidemics, millions of people are sick and thousands die.
Well, this year you can get protection. The vaccines are safe, easy to take, and they can protect you against flu.
So roll up your sleeve. Protect yourself.
There's only one thing I can think of that hits harder than us.
What can that be?
The swine flu. It can knock you flat.
So what's the defense for it, huh?
Like our philosophy. You gotta hit it before it hits you.
You mean the shot?
Yeah. You got yours?
You better believe it. The swine flu wants to challenge me. I'm ready.
Oh, me too, brother. Me too.
Get the swine flu shot.
One of those who did roll up her sleeve was Judy Roberts. She was perfectly healthy, an active woman, when in November of 1976 she took her shot.
Two weeks later she says she began to feel a numbness starting up her legs.
I joked about it at that time. I said I'll be numb to the knees by Friday if this keeps up.
By the following week I was totally paralyzed.
So completely paralyzed, in fact, that they had to operate on her to enable her to breathe.
And for six months Judy Roberts was a quadriplegic.
The diagnosis? A neurological disorder called Guillain-Barre syndrome, GBS for short.
These neurological diseases are little understood. They affect people in different ways.
As you can see in these home movies taken by a friend, Judy Roberts' paralysis confined her mostly to a wheelchair for over a year.
But this disease can even kill. Indeed, there are 300 claims now pending from the families of GBS victims who died, allegedly as a result of the swine flu shot.
In other GBS victims, the crippling effects diminish and all but disappear.
But for Judy Roberts, progress back to good health has been painful and partial.
Now, I notice that your smile, Judy, is a little bit constricted.
Yes, it is.
Is it different from what it used to be?
Very different. I have a greatly decreased mobility in my lips.
And I can't drink through a straw on the right-hand side. I can't blow out birthday candles.
I don't whistle anymore, for which my husband is grateful.
It may be a little difficult for you to answer this question, but have you recovered as much as you are going to recover?
Yes, this is it.
So you will now have a legacy of braces on your legs for the rest of your life?
Yes, the weakness in my hands will stay and the leg braces will stay.
So Judy Roberts and her husband have filed a claim against the U.S. government.
They're asking $12 million, though they don't expect to get nearly that much.
Judy, why did you take the flu shot?
I'd never taken any other flu shots, but I felt like this was going to be a major epidemic.
And the only way to prevent a major epidemic of a really deadly variety of flu was for everybody to be immunized.
Where did this so-called deadly variety of flu, where did it first hit back in 1976?
It began right here at Fort Dix in New Jersey in January of that year when a number of recruits began to complain of respiratory ailments, something like the common cold.
An army doctor here sent samples of their throat cultures to the New Jersey Public Health Lab to find out just what kind of bug was going around here.
One of those samples was from a Private David Lewis who had left his sickbed to go on a forced march.
Private Lewis had collapsed on that march, and a sergeant had revived him by mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.
But the sergeant showed no signs of illness.
A few days later, Private Lewis died.
If this disease is so potentially fatal that it's going to kill a young, healthy man, a middle-aged school teacher doesn't have a prayer.
The New Jersey lab identified most of those soldiers' throat cultures as the normal kind of flu virus going around that year,
but they could not make out what kind of virus was in the culture from the dead soldier and from four others who were sick.
So they sent those cultures to the Federal Center for Disease Control in Atlanta, Georgia, for further study.
A few days later, they got the verdict, swine flu.
But that much publicized outbreak of swine flu at Fort Dix involved only Private Lewis who died
and those four other soldiers who recovered completely without the swine flu shot.
If I had known at that time that the boy had been in a sickbed, got up, went out on a forced march, and then collapsed and died,
I would never have taken the shot.
The rationale for our recommendation was not on the basis of the death of a single individual,
but it was on the basis that when we do see a change in the characteristics of the influenza virus,
it is a massive public health problem in this country.
Dr. David Sencer, then head of the CDC, the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta, is now in private industry.
He devised the swine flu program and he pushed it.
You began to give flu shots to the American people in October of 1976.
October 1st.
By that time, how many cases of swine flu around the world had been reported?
There had been several reported, but none confirmed.
There had been cases in Australia that were reported by the press, by the news media.
There were cases in...
None confirmed.
Did you ever uncover any other outbreaks of swine flu?
Anywhere in the world?
No.
Now nearly everyone was to receive the shot in a public health facility where a doctor might not be present.
Therefore, it was up to the CDC to come up with some kind of official consent form,
giving the public all the information it needed about the swine flu shot.
This form stated that the swine flu vaccine had been tested.
What it didn't say was that after those tests were completed, the scientists developed another vaccine,
and that was the one given to most of the 46 million who took the shot.
That vaccine was called X53A.
Was X53A Everfield tested?
I can't say. I would have to...
It wasn't?
I don't know.
I would think that you're in charge of the program.
I would have to check the records. I haven't looked at this in some time.
The information form, the consent form, was also supposed to warn people about any risks of serious complications following the shot.
But did it?
No, I had never heard of any reactions other than a sore arm, fever, this sort of thing.
Judy Roberts' husband, Gene, also took the shot.
Yes, I looked at that document. I signed it. Nothing on there said I was going to have a heart attack or I'd get Guillain-Barre, which I never heard of.
What if people from the government, from the Center for Disease Control, what if they had indeed known about it?
What would be your feeling?
They should have told us.
Did anyone ever come to you and say, you know something, fellas? There's the possibility of neurological damage if you get into a mass immunization program.
No.
No one ever did?
No.
Do you know Michael Hatwick?
Yes.
Dr. Michael Hatwick directed the surveillance team for the swine flu program at the CDC.
His job was to find out what possible complications could arise from taking the shot and to report his findings to those in charge.
Did you know ahead of time, Dr. Hatwick, that there had been case reports of neurological disorders, neurological illness, apparently associated with the injection of influenza vaccine?
Absolutely.
You did?
Yes.
How'd you know that?
By review of the literature.
So you told your superiors, the men in charge of the swine flu immunization program, about the possibility of neurological disorders?
Absolutely.
What would you say if I told you that your superiors say that you never told them about the possibility of neurological complications?
That's nonsense. I can't believe that they would say that they did not know that there were neurological illnesses associated with influenza vaccination.
That simply is not true. We did know that.
I've said that Dr. Hatwick had never told me of his feelings on this subject, and he's lying.
I guess you would have to make that assumption.
Then why does this report from your own agency, dated July 1976, list neurological complications as a possibility?
I think the consensus of the scientific community was that the evidence relating neurologic disorders to influenza immunization was such that they did not feel that this association was a real one.
You didn't feel it was necessary to tell the American people that information?
I think that over the years we have tried to inform the American people as fully as possible.
As part of informing Americans about the swine flu threat, Dr. Sensor's CDC also helped create the advertising to get the public to take the shot.
Let me read to you from one of your own agency's memos planning the campaign to urge Americans to take the shot.
The swine flu vaccine has been taken by many important persons, he wrote.
Example, President Ford, Henry Kissinger, Elton John, Muhammad Ali, Mary Tyler Moore, Rudolph Nureyev, Walter Cronkite, Ralph Nader, Edward Kennedy, etc., etc.
True?
I'm not familiar with that particular piece of paper, but I do know that at least of that group President Ford did take the vaccination.
Did you talk to these people beforehand to find out if they planned to take the shot?
I did not know.
Did anybody?
I do not know.
Did you get permission to use their names in your campaign?
I do not know.
Mary, did you take a swine flu shot?
No, I did not.
Did you give them permission to use your name saying that you had or were going to?
Absolutely not, never did.
Did you ask your own doctor about taking the swine flu shot?
Yes, and at the time he thought it might be a good idea, but I resisted it because I was leery of having the symptoms that sometimes go with that kind of inoculation.
So you didn't?
No, I didn't.
Have you spoken to your doctor since?
Yes.
And?
He's delighted that I didn't take that shot.
You're in charge. Somebody's in charge.
This is your advertising strategy that I have a copy of here.
Who's it signed by?
This one is unsigned.
But you'll acknowledge that it was your baby, so to speak.
It could have been from the Department of Health Education and Welfare. It could be from CDC. I don't know.
I'll be happy to take responsibility for it.
Let me read to you from one of your own agency's memos planning the campaign to urge Americans to take the shot.
The swine flu vaccine has been taken by many important persons, he wrote.
Example, President Ford, Henry Kissinger, Elton John, Muhammad Ali, Mary Tyler Moore, Rudolph Nureyev, Walter Cronkite, Ralph Nader, Edward Kennedy, et cetera, et cetera.
True?
I'm not familiar with that particular piece of paper, but I do know that at least of that group President Ford did take the vaccination.
Did you talk to these people beforehand to find out if they planned to take the shot?
I did not know.
Did anybody?
I do not know.
Did you get permission to use their names in your campaign?
I do not know.
Mary, did you take a swine flu shot?
No, I did not.
Did you give them permission to use your name saying that you had or were going to?
Absolutely not, never did.
Did you ask your own doctor about taking the swine flu shot?
Yes, and at the time he thought it might be a good idea, but I resisted it because I was leery of having the symptoms that sometimes go with that kind of inoculation.
So you didn't?
No, I didn't.
Have you spoken to your doctor since?
Yes.
And?
He's delighted that I didn't take that shot.
Yes.