Smallpox vaccinations urged (MSNBC) - Offer to general population represents a shift in policy

http://www.msnbc.com/news/817382.asp ^ | 10-5-02 | MSNBC

[Robert_Paulson2]

I had NO arguement... I simply had questions as to the "small pox" assertion being the only motive behind the plans to vaccinate in a five day regimen being discussed...

So do others. THAT was the point of my question and the reason why I posted an article by reese that presented HIS questions about it as well.

I am looking for, and have gotten several epidemiological answers via email... WHICH WAS my point for asking... and it worked with some folks.

IT wasn't an invitation to do battle, over vaccinations... or a condemnation of the policy debate it relates to. I wanted to look at additional possibilities for the regimen.

OK with you?

[RottiBiz]

...they are considering offering the risky vaccine to the public prior to an attack...

We keep hearing about the risky vaccine.

The death rate from the vaccine is one to two people per million. The death rate from smallpox is 300 thousand people per million.

I know that my family is getting that risky vaccine the day it comes on the market!

[Miss Marple]

I have been vaccinated 3 times. No one ever told my mother it was risky. I smell democrats whenever I see that word, don't you?

I detest the press.

[Robert_Paulson2]

"a mutated variety of smallpox"

indeed...

and the folks who knee jerk here about a reese article miss the point... his were dishonest questions... but questions that NEED to be answered.

Presenting questions here these days, seems to bring on attacks, instead of substantive answers... with name calling and insults, instead of information.

Anytime I see an article that relates to a thread that has been posted, I don't really see a problem with introducing it... even if it is by dickh#$d morris, or james carville.

Thanks for the insight... we need to consider what we are facing might be WORSE than simple smallpox... I don't know how to discuss it any other way. Unless we were to start discussing what vaccines our family members in the military have gotten in the last xxxx weeks, months or days...

That's about as blunt as I can put it.

[Robert_Paulson2]

ebola and diseases that would require isolation of communities for up to 60 days, might merit MORE water storage, safe foods and a supply of cash and perhaps lead and brass items...

potential martial law... would be a necessary consideration.

just for starters.

[Robert_Paulson2]

The death rate from the vaccine is one to two people per million.

I wonder what the natural death rate is for a million folks, over a period of similar length... in car accidents and cancer alone... betcha its less dangerous risk wise, than a trip to the local grocery store....

[bonesmccoy]

CDC's organization in Atlanta has been favoring the "go slow" and "only we do the diagnosis" approach (which is a one way ticket to mass casulties if it were implemented). I'm full of respect for CDC, but the reality is that CDC is not on the front line of this biowar. The individual physician offices across the United States is the front line. Supplies need to be delivered to the troops in the trenches...that is the primary care office. Right now, the supplies (the vaccines) don't arrive at all. It's high time for CDC to wake up and smell the coffee. CDC needs to remove itself from being in the middle of our national vaccine shortages and return itself to the research and scientific program which made it stronger prior to the Clinton era.

[RottiBiz]

Yes, that's exactly what I was thinking; sort of like the "risky tax scheme" Gore kept blabbering about during the election.

Whenever I hear the word "risky" my hair stands on end!

[.38sw]

any prophylactic antibiotic that is effective? Is it something a five day regimen of antibiotics would possibly prevent the spread of?

Are you talking about using an antiobiotic against ebola? Wouldn't work. Ebola is a virus, and antibiotics are completely ineffective against viruses.

[bonesmccoy]

"risky" is a word that pops up during election years. Who was it that was using the term "risky" during the election of 2000? I seem to remember some SNL skits talking about risky schemes and Algore talking about "lock boxes".

"Lock Box" v. "Strategerie"

[The Great Satan]

I wonder if this is about small pox, or OTHER attacks? Say what do they give you for radiation sickness? Iodine tabs? or injections? What about Anthrax, botulism, or ricin? plague?

What else makes sense?

For anthrax, post-attack treatment is the only viable option for the general public. Consider that, in the event of a major dispersal on the NYC subway, 4 million people would immediately be at risk of dying if they did not get treatment within 24 hours. Not a pretty picture is it?

The government just awarded a contract for a new "morning after" anthrax vaccine, which comes with an order for 25 million doses, enough to treat 8 million people. In the interim, the Pentagon's stocks have been diverted for civilian use, but the amount of vaccine is too small to handle even a single attack on the New York subway (say one sleeper agent tossing a few brown bags of the "Daschle" anthrax on the subway tracks round midnight). The are also big safety and efficacy questions surrounding the existing vaccine. The new vaccine should be through safety trials by the end of next year, if everything goes according to plan. The parallel effort to put in place a mass post-attack dissemination infrastructure, using the remote threat of a smalpox attack as a comfortingly hypothetical pretext, may mean that we have the civil defense framework in place about the same time frame. My guess is that any final showdown with Saddam will be delayed until about six months before the presidential election, based on these rate-limiting factors. There are plenty of things we can do, militarily and non-militarily, to keep the pressure up and kill the intervening time, before we push Saddam's back to the wall.

[bonesmccoy]

dittos to that... current medical therapy for hemorrhagic fever viruses is supportive...that's why the West Nile virus creates such havoc... there is no antiviral proven to shorten or lessen the symptoms of these infections.

[Robert_Paulson2]

THAT is the kind of information I was looking for... thanks buddy.

[Tree of Liberty]

IANAD, but I believe hemorrhagic fever is a term that encompasses several diseases that cause blood vessels to rupture. Ebola's been the most newsworthy of them because of the sporadic, highly lethal outbreaks in sub-saharan Africa every few years.

[The Great Satan]

My pleasure. Here are some relevant links:

Pentagon Shifts Anthrax Vaccine to Civilian Uses

Production and Acquisition of Anthrax Vaccine [RFP announcement]

VaxGen wins federal contract to improve anthrax vaccine

Getting Ready (CDC's director's Freudian slip?)

[Skibane]

a voluntary smallpox vaccination program that would ... extend to the rest of the population as early as 2004.

That's WAY too late. If Saddam or any other terrorists have bugs, they'll unleash them on us long before then. This policy sounds like little more than window dressing to me.

[Robert_Paulson2]

GWEN IFILL: If smallpox is such a dread disease, why not vaccinate people before they have a chance to... it seems almost backwards. Why wouldn't you vaccinate someone against the disease instead of after the disease has been discovered?

DR. JULIE GERBERDING: Well, the problem with this particular vaccine, the one we have right now, is that it has some real serious side effects. And there are some people who are at very high risk for the most serious problems including people with eczema or skin conditions, people have to immuno suppressive disorders and little children.

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I didn't think the vaccine was that "dangerous" when I had it as a kid... is this a different vaccine for a different "strain" of militarized small pox, you think?

[Robert_Paulson2]

Interesting article you posted about the anthrax vaccine too:

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"So far, only one anthrax vaccine has been licensed by the federal government, and it requires six injections over 18 months. VaxGen's contract calls for an anthrax vaccine that requires no more than three injections. "

"Under the contract, VaxGen will adopt and push forward the development of a vaccine candidate that has been created by the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases. If results from the vaccine's first phase of trials are good, VaxGen will be eligible for an additional $13.6 million contract in 2003 for a second phase of trials. "

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Do you think we can drag out taking action on Iraq, until then?

[Fred Mertz]

I thought Cipro was the day after treatment of convenience. I thought it was plentiful, with side effects in more than a few per thousand.

[bonesmccoy]

1. If they release Dryvax by Wyeth, then it is actually the identical virus and stock from 25 years ago.
2. If they release the new Acambis stuff that Tommy Thompson arranged, then it will be new and purer (WAY TO GO BUSH/THOMPSON!).
3. Secretary Thompson was interviewed by Rita Cosby last weekend on this subject. He stated that he was committed to getting this vaccine moving by the end of the year. If Sec. Thompson does this, it will be heroic (though the liberal media will try to trash talk Thompson as soon as the inevitable side-effects appear).

The most important factor is that the Free Republic readers should be calling their Congress critter and demanding updates on this issue. Furthermore, we need to be ready to defend the Administration when the liberal media starts claiming that the people don't know enough to handle this vaccine properly....they will argue that the gov't needs to control each dosage because only the gov't has people who are "experts".