In November, reports started coming in from several states of cases of Guillain-Barre' syndrome, a paralytic disease, that appeared to be connected to the vaccination. By this time, over 40 million people had received the shots. In December of 1976, epidemiologists were able to definitively make a connection between the shot and the illness. On December 16, the program was reluctantly ended. More than a thousand of those who received shots were stricken with Guillain-Barré syndrome.

Here is the conclusion of Lawrence Gostin of Georgetown Law School, concerning the swine flu episode:

The swine flu immunization program provides an intriguing account of policymaking in circumstances of uncertainty. Many commentators held government scientists primarily responsible. For example, in a controversial report commissioned by [President Carter's] Secretary [of Health, Education and Welfare Joseph] Califano, Richard Neustadt and Harvey Fineberg found that health officials manipulated their constitutional superiors to comply with "expert" recommendations by their assumed air of arrogance: overconfidence among scientific experts spun from meager evidence, conviction fueled by personal agendas, and zeal by scientists to make their lay superiors do right.

In retrospect, health officials did err in recommending a massive immunization campaign with substantial economic costs and potential harmful effects in circumstances of scientific uncertainty. The available data were inadequate to predict whether swine flu would be contained within narrow outbreaks or would become a more serious epidemic. Nevertheless, the roles played by the media, industry, and politicians are also instructive. The media made swine flu salient in the public mind - exaggerating both the health effects of the disease and then the risk of vaccine-induced injury and death. The pharmaceutical industry convinced political leaders to hold it harmless against lawsuits while, at the same time, profiting from a massive vaccination program actively promoted by government. Politicians in both the executive and legislative branches wanted to position themselves to gain credit for a successful public health program (e.g., President Ford hoped to pin his reelection prospects on mobilizing the immunization program). At the same time, politicians wanted to avoid the blame for failure to respond to an emergent public health risk (e.g., Congress capitulated to demands for large expenditures first to fund the vaccination campaign and then to assume the liability costs).

The swine flu epidemic is instructive in many ways, but it still fails to answer the critical question of whether, in the face of scientific uncertainty, it is better to err on the side of excess caution or aggressive intervention.

Today, we see many of these same concerns about a currently unquantified threat of attack and outbreak versus a very real threat of severe results from the cure. We also see some of the same behind-the-scenes haggling between the government and the pharmaceutical companies producing the vaccine. At this time, the Administration and the CDC seem to have come to the conclusion that it is better to err on the side of excess caution.

Sources appear below.