Swine Flu is all over the news – countries are imposing major travel restrictions to Mexico, and the CDC has reported 109 cases in the U.S. as of Thursday at 11:00 am.
The current situation reminds me of an article by Philip Alcabes in the Washington Post titled, “5 Myths about Pandemic Panic.” Alcabes questioned the efficacy of looking to the past for ideas about how to prevent future pandemics, and challenged the following myths:
- 1. Infectious diseases are spreading faster than ever;
- 2. To learn to prevent a pandemic, look to the past;
- 3. We should brace ourselves for another Spanish Flu;
- 4. The annual flu season is nothing compared to a pandemic; and
- 5. There’s no such thing as being too prepared
Reuters also published a piece in March questioning the risk of pandemics and there was an article in the Journal of Emerging Infectious Diseases in February suggesting that it was strep, not the Spanish Flu, that killed millions during the 1918 Global Flu Pandemic. The JEID article suggested that had antibiotics against strep been available, many of those people would have survived.
There is now a general feeling that infectious diseases are emerging at alarming rates. Over the next few days we will hear more on the facts about how Swine Flu made it across our borders from Mexico as CDC goes into full swing on contact tracing for the U.S. cases. This is where I think Alcabes’ piece is most relevant. Alcabes wrote:
[W]e run the risk of doing more harm than good by overreacting to the threat of a pandemic. In 1976, swine flu, a strain of influenza similar to the one from 1918, was diagnosed in a small number of soldiers at Fort Dix, N.J., one of whom died. That prompted medical experts to warn that the United States faced a crisis reminiscent of the Spanish flu. President Gerald R. Ford authorized a mass inoculation program, and 45 million Americans — more than 20 percent of the population — were vaccinated.
What I enjoyed most about his article was his attempt to debunk the myth that there is no such a thing as being too prepared in terms of pandemic prevention. He believes that we are spending too many resources on useless preparations. This “trial” run of an emergency response to a serious public health threat may help settle the question of whether the risks associated with a public health emergency, such as the one we are facing with the swine flu, are really worth the investments we have made in preparedness for a biological threat.
Audrey Spolarich, Senior Research Advisor