No link seen between flu outbreak, schizophrenia

Questioning the theory that prenatal exposure to the flu virus might be a risk factor for schizophrenia, a new study finds no link between the flu pandemic of 1957 and later schizophrenia rates.

In an analysis of studies from Europe, Australia, Japan and the U.S., researchers found no higher-than-normal risk of schizophrenia among people born in the nine months after the 1957 flu pandemic.

The findings, reported in the Schizophrenia Bulletin, conflict with those from some earlier studies linking the same pandemic to a heightened schizophrenia rate.