http://groups.google.com/group/misc.kids.health/msg/e7d96e98743ab9e5?hl=en&
"How anyone trusts you lot after the Swine flu fiasco beats me.
60 MINUTES, Sunday Nov 4, 1979
"SWINE FLU"
MIKE WALLACE: 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 nation-wide 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 three and a half billion
dollars 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 pick up the story back in 1976, when the threat posed by the swine
flu
virus seemed very real indeed.
PRESIDENT GERALD FORD; 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.
WALLACE: Thus the U.S. government's publicity machine was cranked into
action to urge all America to protect itself against the swine flu
menace.
(Excerpt from TV commercial urging everyone to get a 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.
JUDY ROBERTS: And 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.
WALLACE: 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
"Guillian-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, alledgedly 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.
ROBERTS: Yes, it is.
WALLACE: Is it different from what it used to be?
ROBERTS: Very different, I have a - a greatly decreased mobility in
my lips.
AndI can't drink through a straw on the right-band side. I can't blow
out
birthday candles. I don't whistle any more, for which my husband is
grateful.
WALLACE: It may be a little difficult for you to answer this question,
but
have you recovered as much as you are going to recover?
ROBERTS: Yes. This - this is it.
WALLACE: So you will now have a legacy of braces on your legs for the
rest
of your life?
ROBERTS: Yes. The weakness in my hands will stay and the leg braces
will
stay.
WALLACE: 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?
ROBERTS: 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 -
a really deadly variety of flu was for every body to be immunized.
WALLACE: 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 our just what kind of bug was going around here. One of those
samples
was from a Private David Lewis, who had left his sick bed to go on a
forced
march. Private Lewis had collapsed on that march, and his sergeant had
revived him by mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. But the sergeant showed no
signs of illness. A few days later, Private Lewis died.
ROBERTS: If this disease is so potentially fatal that it's going to
kill a
young, healthy man, a middle-aged schoolteacher doesn't have a prayer.
WALLACE: The New Jersey lab identified most of those solders' 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.
ROBERTS: If I had known at that time that the boy had been in a sick
bed,
got up, went out on a forced march and then collapsed and died, I would
never have taken the shot.
DR DAVID SENCER: The rationale for our recommendation was not on the
basis
of the death of a - 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 the country.
WALLACE: Dr David Sencer, then head of the CDS - the Center of 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 '76?
DR SENCER: October 1st.
WALLACE: By that time, how many cases of swine flu around the world had
been
reported?
DR SENCER: 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 -
WALLACE: None confirmed? Did you ever uncover any other outbreaks of
swine
flu anywhere in the world?
DR SENCER: No
WALLACE: Now, nearly everyone was to receive a 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
it
was the one given to most of the 46 million who took the shot. That
vaccine
was called "X-53a". Was X-53a ever field tested?
DR SENCER: I-I can't say. I would have to -
WALLACE: It wasn't
DR SENCER: I don't know
WALLACE: Well, I would think that you're in charge of the program
DR SENCER: 1 would have to check the records. I haven't looked at this
in
some time.
WALLACE: The information form the consent form was also supposed to
warn
people about any risk of serious complications following the shot. But
did
it?
ROBERTS: No, I had never heard of any reactions other than a sore arm,
fever, this sort of thing.
WALLACE: Judy Roberts' husband, Gene, also took the shot.
GENE ROBERTS: Yes, I looked at that document, I signed it. Nothing on
there
said I was going to have a heart attack, or I can get Guillain Barre,
which
I'd never heard of.
WALLACE: 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?
JUDY ROBERTS: They should have told us.
WALLACE: Did anyone ever come to you and say, "You know something,
fellows,
there's the possibility of neurological damage if you get into a mass
immunization program?"
DR SENCER: No
WALLACE: No one ever did?
DR SENCER: No
WALLACE: Do you know Michael Hattwick?
DR SENCER: Yes, uh-hmm.
WALLACE: Dr Michael Hattwick 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 Hattwick that there had been
case
reports of neurological disorders, neurological illness, apparently
associated with the injection of influenza vaccine?
DR MICHAEL HNITWlCK: Absolutely
WALLACE: You did?
DR HATIWICK: Yes
WALLACE: How did you know that?
DR HATrwICK: By review of the literature.
WALLACE: So you told your superiors - the men in charge of the swine
flu
immunization program - about the possibility of neurological disorders?
DR RATTWICK: Absolutely
WALLACE: What would you say if I told you that your superiors say that
you
never told them about the possibility of neurological complications?
DR HAJTWICK: 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.
DR SENCER: I have said that Dr Hattwick had never told me of his
feelings on
this subject.
WALLACE: Then he's lying?
DR SENCER: I guess you would have to make that assumption.
WALLACE: Then why does this report from your own agency, dated July
1976,
list neurological complications as a possibility?
DR SENCER: 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.
WALLACE: You didn't feel it was necessary to tell the American people
that
information
DR SENCER: I think that over the - the years we have tried to inform
the
American people as - as fully as possible.
WALLACE: As part of informing Americans about the swine flu threat, Dr
Sencer's CDC also helped create the advertising to get the public to
take
the shot. Let me read to your 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 Ah, Mary Tyler Moore, Rudolf
Nureyev,
Walter Cronkite, Ralph Nader, Edward Kennedy" -etcetera, etcetera,
True?
DR SENCER: 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.
WALLACE: Did you talk to these people beforehand to find out if they
planned
to take the shot?
DR SENCER: I did not, no.
WALLACE: Did anybody?
DR SENC ER: I do not know.
WALLACE: Did you get permission to use their names in your campaign?
DR SENCER: I do not know.
WALLACE: Mary, did you take a swine flu shot?
MARY TYLER MOORE: No, I did not.
WALLACE: Did you give them permission to use your name saying that you
had
or were going to?
MOORE: Absolutely not. Never did.
WALLACE: Did you ask your own doctor about taking the swine flu shot?
MOORE: 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.
WALLACE: So you didn't?
MOORE: No, I didn't.
WALLACE: Have you spoken to your doctor since?
MOORE: Yes.
WALLACE: And?
MOORE: He's delighted that I didn't take that shot.
WALLACE: You're in charge. Somebody's in charge.
DR SENCER: There are -
WALLACE: This is your advertising strategy that I have a copy of here.
DR SENCER: Who's it signed by?
WALLACE: This one is unsigned. But you--you'll acknowledge that it was
your
baby so to speak?
DR SENCER: 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.
WALLACE: It's been three years now since you fell ill by GBS right?
ROBERTS: Right.
WALLACE: Has the federal government, in your estimation, played fair
with
you about your claim?
ROBERTS: No, I don't think so. It seems to be dragging on and on and
on, and
really no end in sight that I can see at this point.
JOSEPH CALIFANO: With respect to the cases of Guillain Barre...
WALLACE: Former Secretary of HEW Joseph Caifano, too was disturbed that
there was no end in sight. So a year and a half ago, he proposed that
Uncle
Sam would cut the bureaucratic red tape for victims suffering from GBS
and
would pay up quickly.
CALIFANO: We shouldn't hold them to an impossible or too difficult
standard
of proving that they were hurt. Even if we pay a few people a few
thousand
dollars that might not have deserved it, I think justice requires that
we
promptly pay those people who do deserve it.
WALLACE: Who's making the decision to be so hard-nosed about settling?
CALIFANO: Well, I assume the Justice Department is.
WALLACE: Griffin Bell, before he left?
CALIFANO: Well, the Justice Department agreed to the statement I made.
It
was cleared word for word with the lawyers in the Justice Department by
my
HEW lawyers.
CALIFANO: That-that statement said that we should pay Guillain Barre
claims
without regard to whether the federal government was negligent, if they
- if
they resulted from the swine flu shot.
GENE ROBERTS: I think the government knows its wrong.
JUDY ROBERTS: If it drags out long enough, that people will just give
up,
let it go.
GENE ROBERTS: I-I am a little more adament in my thoughts than my
wife is,
because I asked - told Judy to take the shot. She wasn't going to take
it,
and she never had had shots. And I'm mad with my government because
they
knew the fact, but they didn't realise those facts because they - if
they
had released them, the people wouldn't have taken it. And they can come
out
tomorrow and tell me there's going to be an epidemic, and they can drop
off
like flies to - next to me, I will not take another shot that my
government
tells me to take.
WALLACE: Meantime, Judy Roberts and some 4,000 others like her are
still
waiting for their day in court."
