1976 swine flu outbreak strain. On July 23, the President sends a letter urging Congress to take action on indemnification. In early August an outbreak of illness in Philadelphia is thought to be related to swine flu. It is found to be an atypical pneumonia thereafter called Legionnaires' disease. On August 6, President Ford holds a press conference urging Congress to take action on the indemnification legislation. Four days later, both Houses of Congress pass the legislation. Merrill becomes the first company to submit samples to the FDA's Bureau of Biologics for safety testing, which approves it on September 2. Merck makes the first
1976 Philadelphia Legionnaires' disease outbreak testing specimens. While the Center for Disease Control responded rapidly, as did the Pennsylvania Health Department, it took six months for the CDC microbiologist Joseph McDade to discover the cause of the outbreak. He initially thought the cause was viral because blood and tissues from the victims failed to grow bacteria when incubated in culture medium. His subsequent attempts to isolate the viral agent in eggs included antibiotics to kill off "contaminating" bacteria. It was only when he omitted the antibiotics that the bacteria grew in eggs. Attempts to reproduce the disease in mice, the standard laboratory animal model, also