Research Implicates TB in 1918 Flu Pandemic

Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2000. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.

Research Implicates TB in 1918 Flu Pandemic

Los Angeles Times (www.latimes.com) (10/30/00) P. S2

A study from the University of California at Berkeley claims that the large number of the deaths in 1918, when a flu pandemic took the lives of some 500,000 Americans, was due to a concurrent outbreak of tuberculosis (TB). At the time, TB spread as factory employees worked in close, poorly ventilated situations. Based on studies of bodies recovered from the Alaskan tundra, doctoral student Andrew Noymer reports in the current issue of Population and Development Review that people ages 20 to 40 were most likely to die in the pandemic of 1918, being the group most affected by TB. After the pandemic, the death rate from TB fell sharply, which Noymer suggests is because the flu may have killed many of the TB patients.
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