I have now encountered a couple of times the following  argument. This is from an article in the LA Times: “The question of whether politics overtook science in 1976 has been the fodder of books, articles and discussions for 33 years. The panic in 1976 was partly because of the belief — now known to be erroneous — that the 1918-19 flu pandemic, which killed half a million Americans and as many as 50 million worldwide, was caused by a virus with swine components. Recent research suggests instead that it was avian flu, but that seems unlikely to assuage the current anxiety.”

The argument is absolutely a-historical. The 1918 virus infected swine in 1918 and circulated ever since in swine. Where the 1918 virus originally came from, is not clear and isn’t actually important to understand the 1976 reasoning. For those of you who are interested in error: it lies somewhere else.