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Managing Public Health Risks: The Swine Flu Immunization Program Revisited

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 February 2021

Jonathan E. Fielding
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Abstract

In this Comment, the Massachusetts Commissioner of Public Health views the federal government’s 1976-77 Swine Flu Immunization Program, which was sharply criticized by Dr. Cyril Wecht in a recent Article in this journal, as a classic example of a public policy decision made under conditions of stress and uncertainty. Once the responsible government officials had made a public commitment to immunize the entire populace of the United States, he contends, they found it very difficult to reformulate the program in response to changing information concerning its relative costs and benefits. Dr. Fielding offers suggestions for avoiding in the future some of the problems that surrounded the Swine Flu Program and for preventing further erosion of public confidence in essential preventive medicine programs.

Type
Articles and Comments
Information
American Journal of Law & Medicine , Volume 4 , Issue 1 , Spring 1978 , pp. 35 - 43
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Law, Medicine and Ethics and Boston University 2020

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References

1 For a discussion of the marketing issue, see Clarke, Marketing Health Care: Problems in Implementation, Health Care Management Review, Winter 1978CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 21.

2 See Feeley, Walsh, & Fielding, Structural Codes and Patient Safety: Does Strict Compliance Make Sense? 3 Am. J. L. & Med. 447 (1977-78)Google Scholar.

3 See Spitzer, & Brown, Unanswered Questions About the Periodic Health Examination, 83 Ann. Intern. Med. 257 (1975)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4 See Hiatt, Protecting the Medical Commons: Who Is Responsible? 293 New England J. Med. 235 (1975)CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed.

5 Wecht, The Swine Flu Immunization Program: Scientific Venture or Political Folly? 3 Am. J. L. & Med. 425 (1977-78)Google Scholar [hereinafter cited as Wecht].

6 Id. at 438.

7 Id. at 440.

8 Id. at 427.

9 Weinstein, Influenza—1918, A Revisit? 294 New England J. Med. 1058, 1059 (1976)CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed (editorial).

10 Wecht, supra note 5, at 433.

11 Id. at 432.

12 See Parkman, Galasso, Top, & Noble, Summary of Clinical Trials of Influenza Vaccines, 134 J. Infect. Dis. 100 (1976)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

13 Wecht, supra note 5, at 435.

14 Id. at 438.

15 Id. at 443.

16 M. at 438.

17 Id. at 433.

18 Id.

19 Id. at 436-37.