A question about 1970's swine flu vaccine.

[conscious evolution]

If someone was vacinated in the outbreak back in the seventies would it still be effective with todays version of swine flu?

[SPedigrees]

1. Not a chance. Vaccination this year against ordinary flu might have peripheral effect. nt

[Warpy]

2. No, the restistance wears off very quickly

In addition, this new one contains bits of human, porcine and avian viruses, so even if you got the shot yesterday, it wouldn't confer protection.

There was enough panic in the 70s to develop that vaccine because a very serious flu variant had jumped species from birds to swine and the usual pattern said we were next. The jump to humans never happened, and people who were vaccinated and developed serious complications (and a few always do with any vaccine) felt they'd been given a brush with death over nothing.

Developing the vaccine was a prudent thing to do. Using it was premature and shouldn't have happened unless the species jump to humans had occurred.

[damntexdem]

3. And the flu evolves quickly.

That's why we have different waves of flue periodically.

[kestrel91316]

5. Warpy, the body never forgets an initial exposure to an antigen.

Booster vaccines capitalize on this "anamnestic response". However, I tend to think that antigenic similarities would probably make that old swine flu vaccination moot.

Furthermore, if overexuberant immune response (cytokine storm) is part of the problem with the mortalities, maybe vaccination would increase the risk of that? I don't remember enough of my virology and immunology from 1976-77 to be able to converse intelligently beyond this..........sigh.

[Warpy]

6. Unfortunately with influenza

as little as a year later, the virus has mutated so significantly that re vaccination is necessary.

I'm not sure a cytokine storm would be triggered by a small amount of attenuated antigen rather than an infection by a large amount of antigen.

My virology and immunology are a little more recent than yours, but not by much.

[kestrel91316]

4. I am curious myself about any cross-protection. Even though many of us were vaccinated

for swine flu nearly 35 years ago, you can never take away the biological fact that our bodies have been primed against that particular swine flu. But flu viruses are so highly variable in their antigenicity that the only thing they may have in common is their name.

Big question. I have not seen this addressed at all by any medical authorities.

[caseymoz]

7. No. This is a totally different flu. They call it a Swine Flu,

but it's really a chimera that mostly resembles Swine Flu. Now, that's unusual, but it's nothing too unusual, so don't look at conspiracies.