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A review by chelse34
Flu: The Story of the Great Influenza Pandemic of 1918 and the Search for the Virus That Caused It by Gina Kolata
3.0
Very interesting read. The most recent date parts of this book is 1998 with the science stuff. I'm curious if more has been found out.
Basically scientists wanted to find out why the Spanish flu of 1918 was so deadly. They estimate 100 million people died worldwide from it. When scientists were finally able to figure out the flu came from a virus and were able to map the RNA genetic strands from it, they were curious about the 1918 version.
There were some tissue samples from the army preserved in a storehouse for 80 years that they used. They also dug up eskimos in the Alaskan permafrost to collect samples of their lungs. They didn't find the live virus (they tried to grow it in the 50's for study), but they were able to use the dead virus to find the complete genetic sequence.
Different strands are titled from their different proteins that the flu virus has (hence the H1N1 for swine flu). The numbers change based in how the proteins mutate each year. Found that part fascinating!
They also talk about the immunization campaign during the Ford administration in the 70's. They thought they were going to have a huge flu pandemic again and used a bunch of federal money to vaccinate everybody. All it turned into was a fiasco of every suing the government for things that happened post vaccine. (Yes some people will have heart attacks and strokes after the vaccine if everybody gets it, because people have that happen on a daily basis. The vaccine didn't necessarily cause it.) So yeah, big litigation mess, and they canceled the campaign, and a pandemic didn't happen.
Ultimately by the end, they couldn't for sure figure out why it was so deadly. They had 3 different ideas for why it could have been.
Unless you are super interested in what I've just described with the book and want to learn more and delve deeper, you probably don't need to read this book. It's got some thick science descriptions and goes into a lot of detail telling the story of finding the virus. I just gave you all the main points if you want to skip reading it.
Basically scientists wanted to find out why the Spanish flu of 1918 was so deadly. They estimate 100 million people died worldwide from it. When scientists were finally able to figure out the flu came from a virus and were able to map the RNA genetic strands from it, they were curious about the 1918 version.
There were some tissue samples from the army preserved in a storehouse for 80 years that they used. They also dug up eskimos in the Alaskan permafrost to collect samples of their lungs. They didn't find the live virus (they tried to grow it in the 50's for study), but they were able to use the dead virus to find the complete genetic sequence.
Different strands are titled from their different proteins that the flu virus has (hence the H1N1 for swine flu). The numbers change based in how the proteins mutate each year. Found that part fascinating!
They also talk about the immunization campaign during the Ford administration in the 70's. They thought they were going to have a huge flu pandemic again and used a bunch of federal money to vaccinate everybody. All it turned into was a fiasco of every suing the government for things that happened post vaccine. (Yes some people will have heart attacks and strokes after the vaccine if everybody gets it, because people have that happen on a daily basis. The vaccine didn't necessarily cause it.) So yeah, big litigation mess, and they canceled the campaign, and a pandemic didn't happen.
Ultimately by the end, they couldn't for sure figure out why it was so deadly. They had 3 different ideas for why it could have been.
Unless you are super interested in what I've just described with the book and want to learn more and delve deeper, you probably don't need to read this book. It's got some thick science descriptions and goes into a lot of detail telling the story of finding the virus. I just gave you all the main points if you want to skip reading it.