The West Branch Study Summary and Analysis

Dr. Stephen C. Schoenbaum, of the Atlanta Center for Disease Control arrived in West Branch, Michigan, in May of 1968, to assist with an outbreak of infectious hepatitis, an inflammation of the liver, assumed to of viral nature. Infectious hepatitis is contagious and usually transmitted by direct contact with an infected individual, food, or water contaminated with the excrement of an infected person. Unresponsive to most treatment, this disease runs its course but may be fatal in some individuals. Those exposed to the disease can obtain an injection of gamma globulin, a protein taken from the blood of previously infected individuals, containing antibodies. The standard course of action, once a case is verified, is to find the source and thus prevent further infection. The course of investigation resulted in the establishment of a curve of infection...