The Importance of the Influenza Vaccine

Illnesses have long haunted the human race. As long as these illnesses have existed, humans have developed ways to cure themselves, beginning with simple herbs and proceeding as far as vaccines and complex medicines. One cure that long eluded scientists was that of the influenza virus. Now, the influenza vaccine, or flu shot, saves thousands of lives a year and helps prevent serious complications resulting from influenza infection.

At no time was a search for the cure for influenza more frantic than after the devastating effects of the pandemic of 1918. The pandemic killed somewhere between twenty and a hundred million people, making it twenty five times more deadly than the ordinary cough and sneeze flu. The symptoms of this flu were like something straight out of a horror movie: the victim’s facial complexion changed to a dark, brownish purple, the feet turned black, and they began to cough up blood. Eventually, death was caused, literally by drowning, when the victim’s lungs filled with their own blood. The first scientist to claim to solve the enigma of influenza was Dr. Friedrich Johann Pfeiffer. He isolated a bacterium he named Hemophilus influenzae from the respiratory tract of those who had the flu in the pandemic of 1890. He was believed to be correct in his discovery until the pandemic of 1918, when scientists searched the respiratory tracts of influenza victims and only sometimes found his bacterium. Robert E. Shope and his mentor Paul Lewis were the next to attempt to crack the code of influenza. They chose to study the disease in pigs, a controversial choice because many people believed that the swine influenza pigs were contracting was not the same as the human flu. The first experiment they ran was ba...

... middle of paper ...

..., ignorant to the fact that it could save their very life.

Works Cited

Cunningham, Kevin. Diseases in History: Flu. North Carolina: Morgan Reynolds Publishing, 2009. Print.

Kolata, Gina. Flu: The Story of the Great Influenza Pandemic of 1918 and the Search for the Virus that Cause It. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1999. Print.

“The Nasal Spray Flu Vaccine (Live Attenuated Influenza Vaccine [LAIV].” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. USA.gov, 21 Sept. 2011. Web. 21 Jan. 2012

“Seasonal Flu Shot.” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. USA.gov, 21 Sept. 2011. Web. 19 Jan. 2012

“Seasonal Influenza-Associated Hospitalization in the United States.” USA.gov, 24 June 2011. Web. 31 Jan. 2012

“Selecting the Viruses in the Seasonal Influenza (Flu) Vaccine.” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. USA.gov, 9 March 2011. Web. 19 Jan. 2010