Introduction

This book examines major threats from disease to the people of the USA, and the ways in which American presidents have responded to such threats. It describes pandemics, and looks at several presidents. It looks critically at two, Woodrow Wilson and Dwight Eisenhower, and at their inaction when faced with influenza. It looks especially at Gerald Ford’s scorned National Influenza Immunization Program (NIIP, or the Swine Flu Vaccination plan), and concludes that—in contrast to the conventional wisdom—there is much to be learned from Ford’s efforts. It discusses major achievements in combatting infectious diseases in the twentieth century, such as the eradication of smallpox, and the virtual eradication of polio and of so-called “childhood diseases,” such as measles, that at one time were almost universal but are threatening to return because of the irrational refusal of many parents to immunize themselves and their children. Above all, the book demonstrates that efforts to impose severe limits on the size, scope, and expense of government are dangerous. Government, and that means presidential action, often provides the best, and sometimes the only, method of protecting the population.