The Swine Flu Affair: Decision-Making on a Slippery Disease
E814977
The Swine Flu Affair: Decision-Making on a Slippery Disease is a detailed case study examining the U.S. government's 1976 swine flu vaccination program and the complexities of public health decision-making under uncertainty.
All labels observed (1)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| The Swine Flu Affair: Decision-Making on a Slippery Disease canonical | 1 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T9698603 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: The Swine Flu Affair: Decision-Making on a Slippery Disease Context triple: [Harvey V. Fineberg, notableWork, The Swine Flu Affair: Decision-Making on a Slippery Disease]
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A.
Pandemics: What Everyone Needs to Know
Pandemics: What Everyone Needs to Know is an accessible, expert-driven overview of how pandemics emerge, spread, and can be controlled, written for a general audience by Nobel Prize–winning immunologist Peter C. Doherty.
-
B.
Infectious Diseases of Humans: Dynamics and Control
Infectious Diseases of Humans: Dynamics and Control is a seminal book that applies mathematical modeling to understand and predict the spread and control of infectious diseases in human populations.
-
C.
How Contagion Works
How Contagion Works is a short nonfiction book by Italian writer Paolo Giordano that reflects on the COVID-19 pandemic and explores how contagion shapes societies, behaviors, and interconnected global systems.
-
D.
The Great Influenza
The Great Influenza is John M. Barry’s historical account of the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic, examining its scientific, medical, and social impact on the modern world.
-
E.
Infections and Inequalities
"Infections and Inequalities" is a seminal book by physician-anthropologist Paul Farmer that examines how poverty, social injustice, and global power imbalances shape the distribution and treatment of infectious diseases.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: The Swine Flu Affair: Decision-Making on a Slippery Disease Target entity description: The Swine Flu Affair: Decision-Making on a Slippery Disease is a detailed case study examining the U.S. government's 1976 swine flu vaccination program and the complexities of public health decision-making under uncertainty.
-
A.
Pandemics: What Everyone Needs to Know
Pandemics: What Everyone Needs to Know is an accessible, expert-driven overview of how pandemics emerge, spread, and can be controlled, written for a general audience by Nobel Prize–winning immunologist Peter C. Doherty.
-
B.
Infectious Diseases of Humans: Dynamics and Control
Infectious Diseases of Humans: Dynamics and Control is a seminal book that applies mathematical modeling to understand and predict the spread and control of infectious diseases in human populations.
-
C.
How Contagion Works
How Contagion Works is a short nonfiction book by Italian writer Paolo Giordano that reflects on the COVID-19 pandemic and explores how contagion shapes societies, behaviors, and interconnected global systems.
-
D.
The Great Influenza
The Great Influenza is John M. Barry’s historical account of the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic, examining its scientific, medical, and social impact on the modern world.
-
E.
Infections and Inequalities
"Infections and Inequalities" is a seminal book by physician-anthropologist Paul Farmer that examines how poverty, social injustice, and global power imbalances shape the distribution and treatment of infectious diseases.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (43)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
book
ⓘ
case study ⓘ |
| analyzes |
U.S. federal government response to swine flu
ⓘ
interagency coordination in health policy ⓘ mass immunization program planning ⓘ |
| associatedWith |
Centers for Disease Control (CDC)
ⓘ
linked to:
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
U.S. Public Health Service ⓘ
linked to:
Public Health Service
|
| author |
Harvey V. Fineberg
ⓘ
Richard E. Neustadt ⓘ
linked to:
Richard Neustadt
|
| commissionedBy |
U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare
ⓘ
linked to:
Department of Health, Education, and Welfare
|
| context | post-1976 evaluation of U.S. swine flu program ⓘ |
| countryOfFocus |
United States
ⓘ
linked to:
United States of America
|
| examines |
communication of risk to the public
ⓘ
liability issues in vaccination programs ⓘ political pressures on health officials ⓘ role of scientific advice in policy decisions ⓘ vaccine safety concerns ⓘ |
| focusesOnEvent | 1976 swine flu outbreak at Fort Dix, New Jersey ⓘ |
| format |
digital PDF
ⓘ
print ⓘ |
| genre |
public health history
ⓘ
public policy analysis ⓘ |
| intendedAudience |
policy makers
ⓘ
public health professionals ⓘ scholars of decision-making ⓘ |
| language | English ⓘ |
| provides |
framework for analyzing policy under uncertainty
ⓘ
lessons for future epidemic responses ⓘ |
| publicationYear | 1982 ⓘ |
| publisher | National Academies Press ⓘ |
| relatedTo |
influenza pandemic preparedness
ⓘ
vaccine policy in the United States ⓘ |
| settingTimePeriod | mid-1970s ⓘ |
| structure | narrative case study with analytical commentary ⓘ |
| subject |
1976 swine flu vaccination program
ⓘ
public health decision-making ⓘ risk and uncertainty in policy ⓘ |
| topic |
epidemic preparedness
ⓘ
governmental risk management ⓘ mass vaccination campaigns ⓘ policy failure and learning ⓘ |
| usedAs |
reference in pandemic planning literature
ⓘ
teaching case in public policy courses ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: The Swine Flu Affair: Decision-Making on a Slippery Disease Description of subject: The Swine Flu Affair: Decision-Making on a Slippery Disease is a detailed case study examining the U.S. government's 1976 swine flu vaccination program and the complexities of public health decision-making under uncertainty.
Referenced by (1)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.