A Pandemic We Knew Not       

   We were finishing up our freshman year in college when a lethal virus emerged in East Asia. We never did know about it, though it was the second-most severe influenza outbreak in U.S. history, after the 1918 crisis.

   Maurice Hilleman, an American microbiologist at Walter Reed saw the problem coming and prepared for it. He arranged for the military to ship samples of the pathogen from Hong Kong to Washington. 

   This strain, H2N2, was unlike any flu that humans were known to have. No one would be immune. 

   The U.S. Public Health Service ignored Hilleman's warnings. "I was declared crazy," he said. 

   He sent samples to the six largest pharmaceutical companies, directing them to produce a vaccine - and they did. "He had that kind of clout," said a historian. 

      
    The pandemic of 1957-58 caused 1.1 million deaths worldwide and 116,000 in the U.S. Researchers say a million more Americans would have died if not for the companies that distributed 40 million doses of vaccine that fall. 

   Hilleman joined Merck & Co. where he developed vaccines for more than 40 diseases, including measles, mumps and meningitis. These illnesses faded from public memory.

    A curator of medicine and science says one irony of public health is that "the more successful experts are, the more people forget about the dangers."

Smithsonian magazine

   We wonder if President Eisenhower, Congress and 50 governors had any involvement in this response, as government does today. Did you ever hear of Maurice Hilleman, who died in 2005 at age 85?