Reye’s Syndrome: A Medical Mystery and a Modern Dilemma
Event flyer: Largent Flyer
Throughout the 1970s and early 1980s, parents and physicians were terrified by the emergence of an apparently new ailment that left hundreds of children dead every year and hundreds more permanently damaged. Reye’s Syndrome, first described in the early 1960s, appeared as children were recovering from influenza and sometimes chickenpox, quickly throwing them into comas and frequently death. About half of the children diagnosed with Reye’s syndrome died and about half of the survivors were left with permanent brain or liver damage. Scientists and physicians raced to find the cause and develop treatments for Reye’s syndrome, and eventually epidemiological evidence emerged that it was caused or at least made more severe by aspirin. Since the early 1980’s, parents have been warned to avoid giving their children aspirin, especially when they suffered from a viral illness. But even before the FDA began labeling aspirin bottles, the number of Reye’s syndrome cases dropped dramatically, and it nearly disappeared before the before the Public Health Service could complete its study of the hypothesis that aspirin was to blame for the ailment. This talk will examine the history of Reye’s syndrome, the hunt to uncover its cause, and the debates that have emerged over last twenty years about the role of aspirin in Reye’s syndrome.
Join us for Dr. Largent’s lecture on Wednesday, October 16, 2013 from noon till 1 pm in person or online:
In person: The lecture will take place in C102 East Fee Hall on MSU’s East Lansing campus. Feel free to bring your lunch! Beverages and light snacks will be provided.
Online: Here are some instructions for your first time joining the webinar, or if you have attended or viewed them before, go to the meeting!
Mark Largent is an historian of science and medicine, Associate Dean of Lyman Briggs College at MSU, and an Associate Professor in James Madison College at MSU. His research and teaching focuses on the role of scientists and physicians in American public policy debates. His first book, Breeding Contempt: The History of Coerced Sterilization in the United States (Rutgers 2008) described the rise of compulsory sterilization laws in the US. Most recently, he published Vaccine: The Debate in Modern America (Johns Hopkins, 2012), which examined current debates about compulsory vaccination laws and the autism-vaccine controversy. He is currently writing a history of Reye’s syndrome.
MSU Bioethics 