Immune Response to H1N1 Flu a Killer?

A hallmark of pandemic flu throughout history, including the 2009 H1N1 pandemic, has been its ability to make healthy young and middle-aged adults seriously ill and even kill this population in disproportionate numbers. In a paper published Dec. 5 in Nature Medicine, Vanderbilt University Medical Center researchers provide a possible explanation for this alarming phenomenon of pandemic flu. The study's findings suggest people are made critically ill, or even killed, by their own immune response.

On November 19, Jason Martin returned to the Medical Intensive Care Unit (MICU) at Vanderbilt University Medical Center for the first time since he nearly died there during last year's H1N1 flu pandemic. The tall and burly Warren County, TN, ambulance worker -- a 30-year-old, father of three young children -- broke down and hugged some of the nurses he recognized.

"I got sick on September 12 and didn't come out of it for the next 20 days. I am just so grateful I came through," Martin said, wiping his eyes.

Martin was among the first wave of critically ill middle Tennesseans, hit hard by the H1N1 flu pandemic in late 2009. A hallmark of pandemic flu throughout history, including the H1N1 pandemic, has been its ability to make healthy young and middle-aged adults seriously ill and even kill this population in disproportionate numbers.…

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