Suffering the Flu Without Dr. Sencer

I was lying in bed with the flu the other weekend, feeling as if I had just gone 10 rounds with Sugar Ray Leonard, when I got to thinking: “Where’s a guy like Dr. David Sencer when you really need him?”

You remember Dr. Sencer, former director of the federal Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta. He’s the man who nine years ago helped persuade President Gerald Ford to sign a $1.94-billion bill that included about $135 million to carry out a nationwide swine flu immunization program.

I never took advantage of that program, which was suspended Dec. 16, 1976, after doctors grew concerned that the shots might increase the risks of contracting Guillain-Barre syndrome, a nonfatal and generally temporary infectious polio disease.

Sneezing and Sniffling

But I was impressed with the way Dr. Sencer got everybody so sympathetic toward their sneezing and sniffling neighbors. Employee sick leave suddenly became as liberal as the old Santa Monica City Council, and people were falling all over each other to supply a bedridden colleague with the latest flu home remedy.

This time, there’s been no such luck.

Millions of Americans have suffered through the flu this winter, but there’s not a peep out of Uncle Sam. In fact, in November, an official of the Centers for Disease Control, while cautioning that predicting flu outbreaks “is notoriously tricky,” expressed hope for a mild flu season this year based on the mild flu season in the Southern Hemisphere.

The official, no doubt, had not heard about this new Philippine flu and its viral buddies.

This is a bug that acts like that beast in the movie “Alien.” It comes and goes. One hour you’re walking down the street feeling fine and the next hour you feel like you’ve been belted in the solar plexus. Later, you feel good enough to schedule an outing with friends; by sunset, you’re in bed wishing you did have Guillain-Barre syndrome.

‘Take Some Aspirin’

Doctors are of little help: “Take some aspirin and call me in the morning if you have health insurance,” is the typical response.

But worse than the disease itself is disclosing your ailment to others who haven’t been afflicted. You start feeling like Rodney Dangerfield explaining a flu that acts like a phantom illness. Folks start thinking you have a variety of the whine flu instead of the swine flu.

“So what’s this ailment you have? Flu, huh? Thought you said you had that two weeks ago. You say your head is aching and you’re body’s in pain? If you don’t get yourself outta that house soon, I’m gonna show you what real pain is.”

It’s reactions like that I’ve encountered.

So I’m going to fill my glass full of cough syrup and propose a toast to Dr. Sencer: “Here’s to Aaah-Chooo!”

Shiver is a staff writer for The Times’ financial section.