THE BELL CURVE:

If you were old enough — and I was, and then some — to be watching television or reading newspapers in the winter of 1976, then you probably remember the swine flu media field day that Walter Cronkhite called “sensationalizing the coincidental.” You might even have been one of every four Americans who were inoculated for that disease before the treatment was abruptly halted.

Well, we’re flirting with that emotional neighborhood again, and whatever we do by way of protection should be at least evaluated in the light of what happened 29 years ago, which, in turn, was conditioned by what happened in 1918. The circumstances aren’t the same, but they are close enough to allow history to help avoid both over- and under-reactions to what we’re facing today.

I heard abut the 1918 flu epidemic that killed a half-million Americans from my parents, who lost several cousins to the disease. But it was a distant vision that didn’t prepare me for the 1976 swine-flu panic that started in Fort Dix, N.J., when a young Army recruit named David Lewis died 24 hours after reporting sick by an influenza not seen since the plague of 1918. The death was made public two weeks later when the killer was identified as swine flu and it was determined that 500 fellow soldiers had caught the disease without feeling ill. But the rapidity with which its expansion took place concerned the government doctors and the general public when this was made known. In light of what followed, it was ironic that Lewis was the only American to die of the swine flu in the entire year.

Doctors from the Centers for Disease Control and other government health officials were quickly faced with the dilemma that hopefully we can avoid today. Should the government turn to mass inoculations to protect us against a possible plague or should the president of the United States who had, finally, to make this decision wait to see if the virus tailed off or got stronger? And this, of course, introduced another factor: the political impact of such a decision.

My fuzzy memories of the details of the rest of that year are enlarged here by two documents I found on the Internet, an account in a New Jersey magazine and a lengthy article in the publication of the Centers for Disease Control. The things I remember most vividly are scare tactics that instead of comforting us simply fueled our fears. Typical was the film of an airline stewardess — not knowing she’s infected — kissing a lot of small children on her flight, followed by shots of the same kids in pain in hospital beds. But I’m getting ahead of the story.

There were still enough Americans who had survived the plague of 1918 around in 1976 to provide a core of deep concern. Added to the very real threat of the virus, itself, were the reactions to media fright stories, the political impact of the crisis and the interests of America’s big drug manufacturers. These were all issues considered by public health officials in trying to decide whether to support inoculating the entire population. And as one doctor in these debates remarked: “There was nothing in this for the CDC except trouble.”

If inoculation was chosen — as President Gerald Ford was urging — it had to be done quickly. And so he announced his decision in this election year to go ahead with the mass inoculation in mid-March, one day after a surprise loss to Ronald Reagan in the North Carolina Republican presidential primary. It took five months for Congress to approve the funding — largely because Lewis continued to be the only reported victim of the swine flu. There was also concern that the government had to agree to accept liability for any harmful side effects of the vaccine (which caused dozens of lawsuits later). Once these hurdles were cleared, the program was put into operation in late August.

By Oct. 1, the drug manufacturers had the serums ready and thousands of health dispensers were standing by to inoculate 200 million Americans. This occasion was hyped by a photo-op of the president getting his needle on camera as a good leader should. I don’t remember whether I chose not to have the shot or they hadn’t got around to me yet, but the question became moot when the whole program got immediately into deep trouble. On Oct. 12 three Pittsburgh seniors suffered heart attacks and died within hours of getting the shot. This was the beginning of a liturgy of reports of neurological side effects from the serum that forced a suspension of the program. It went away Dec. 16 and never came back.

The score card it left behind was both expensive and depressing. Forty million Americans had been inoculated to protect them from a flu that wasn’t as lethal as the antidote.

I’m seeing signs that these excesses are not happening today. The same dilemma faces the decision makers but neither politics nor pharmaceutical firms appear to be playing a visible role and the media seems relatively restrained. All that remains is for you and me to stay cool and listen to what the professionals are saying before we start shutting down the systems by which we live.

I don’t plan to call the cops if I find myself sharing an elevator with a guy who coughs. A dirty look, maybe, if he doesn’t cover his mouth, but that’s a matter of courtesy. I would figure the odds to be maybe a million to one in my favor. And that, however we choose to deal with this, it, too, will pass.

JOSEPH N. BELL lives in Newport Beach. His column runs Thursdays.