Jeri:

Regarding your quote from Bloomberg indicating that a 1976 vaccination would do some good now, not only does that sound bogus, it is no longer at that address, what it has now is:

Q: Have there been outbreaks of swine flu before?

A: Yes. Health officials said in 1976 that an outbreak of swine flu in people might lead to a pandemic. Widespread vaccination was carried out in the U.S. before experts determined that the virus was not dangerous enough to cause a pandemic. Swine flu occasionally infects people in the U.S. without causing large outbreaks. From 2005 through January 2009, there were 12 reported swine flu cases in the U.S. None of them caused deaths.

The flu virus mutates so rapidly even within flu seasons there is no reason to suppose that any vaccine not specifically manufactured for a given outbreak will do any good; vaccines often are not particularly effective even within a flu season. I doubt that a '76 vaccine remains in effect more than thirty years later.