A CLINICAL EVALUATION OF VACCINATION AGAINST INFLUENZA

Abstract

In the autumn of 1943 members of the Commission on Influenza, and associates, Board for the Investigation and Control of Influenza and other Epidemic Diseases in the Army, Preventive Medicine Service, Surgeon General's Office, United States Army, undertook with Dr. Thomas Francis Jr., as director, to carry out a controlled clinical trial of the prophylactic efficacy against epidemic influenza of a concentrated, inactivated vaccine containing the viruses of influenza types A and B. Preceding studies had shown that a vaccine similarly prepared was capable of furnishing definiteprotection against experimental induction of influenza A or B.¹The present account constitutes a preliminary clinical evaluation of the influence of vaccination on the incidence of influenza during the epidemic of influenza A which occurred in November and December 1943. <h3>VACCINE</h3> The vaccine was prepared in the laboratories of biologic firms according to specifications furnished by the commission and purchased at minimal