3. 1976 swine flu vaccine and Guillain-Barré syndrome
In 1976, a soldier at Fort Dix in New Jersey died of influenza type A, also known as “swine flu.” Due to concerns about the return of the strain of influenza responsible for the 1918 pandemic, public health authorities in the US accelerated the influenza vaccine program for the year.
President Gerald Ford and the Congress agreed to promote and fund vaccination efforts. The epidemic didn’t come to pass. What did occur was an observed spike in the risk of Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS), a neurological disorder resulting from an autoimmune destruction of the nerves in the legs and arms.
In the US, the incidence of GBS is one per 100,000 people. Among those vaccinated in the 1976 campaign, the incidence was higher than in the general population, resulting in a shutdown of the vaccination effort several months later.
During the vaccination push, around 48 million people received these dangerous vaccines in the US. Of those, 532 cases of GBS were reported, along with 25 deaths.
Keep reading to discover other dangerous vaccines that ended up killing people!
