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Influenza Ward 1918 - Photo Credit HHS
Later this year Hollywood will give us another fictionalized pandemic thriller (see Scott Mcpherson’s blog on the movie `Contagion’), but until then we can content ourselves with a number of documentary films available online about pandemics of the past and what may come in the future.
Many of these films I’ve highlighted in the past, but some of those links are now dead. A good friend recently sent me a list (thanks Eric) of updated video links, and so I thought I’d share them with you.
Some of these films paint the H5N1 virus as the next virus likely to spark a global crisis, but the next pandemic – whenever it arrives – may come from some unexpected quarter, as did the 2009 H1N1 pandemic.
There are many candidate viruses circulating out there, mutating and evolving over time. We focus on H5N1 because, quite frankly, its current lethality is the sort of thing that nightmares are made of.
More than half of those known to have been infected have died. But whether H5N1 would retain that horrendous mortality rate as a humanized influenza is the subject of considerable debate.
The next pandemic could just as easily arise from one of the other avian viruses (i.e. H7, H9, H11), or from a reassorted swine flu virus like H1N1, H2N2, or H3N2, or even from Virus X . . . like China’s SARS virus of 2002-03 . . . that wasn’t on anyone’s radar until it started killing people.
As you watch these videos, recognize that they were produced over a span of roughly 15 years and that while documentaries, these films often reflect the opinions and/or agenda of the filmmakers.
And also, remember that our knowledge and understanding of the last great pandemic, and of the science of influenza, continues to evolve.
We’ll begin with pandemics past, and several films that concentrate on the great influenza pandemic of 1918.
Hospitals Full-Up: The 1918 Influenza Pandemic, 8 mins., Johns Hopkins Center for Civilian Biodefense Studies, Nov. 2000. (also available on this YouTube Link).
1918 Flu, 13 minutes, Nova Science Now, PBS, Nov. 2006.
We Heard the Bells: The Influenza of 1918, 57 minutes, US Department of Health & Human Services, 2010. (also available on the Internet Archive)
The American Experience: Influenza 1918, 50 minutes, PBS, 1998.
Secrets of the Dead: Killer Flu, 55 minutes, PBS, ~2004
Flu Pandemics: A Conversation With John M. Barry, 64 mins, M.I.T. 2007.
From the pandemics present category, we’ve an entry produced in the winter of 2009 by PBS on the H1N1 pandemic of that year.
Anatomy of a Pandemic 55 mins, PBS Newshour, 2009.
And looking ahead, specifically at the H5N1 virus, we’ve several entries.
H5N1 – The Next Pandemic? 22 minutes, Nusura, Inc., 2008.
Wide Angle: H5N1 - Killer Flu, ~55 minutes, PBS, Sep. 2005
BUSINESS NOT AS USUAL , 20 mins. - Public Health Seattle and King County, 2008.
Bird Flu: A Virus Of Our Own Hatching, 53 mins, Lecture by Dr. Michael Greger, 2007.
With roughly 7 hours of videos listed above, there’s plenty to keep you occupied until Hollywood serves up its version of the next pandemic.
