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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.

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?

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".

I think the new vaccine is at least as good as the old vaccine. I guess the most generous interpretation of this is to say that, the estimated 1,000 deaths that would follow from immunizing the entire population might have been justified when smallpox was a concrete (natural) threat, but, in the face of a hypothetical threat, it's a tough call, and waiting till after an attack might be a better strategy.

Another interpretation, which I have suggested, is that the remote, hypothetical smallpox threat makes a convenient cover story or stalking horse for rolling out civil defense measures against the very concrete threat presented in the anthrax letters, and presented by Saddam Hussein's known heavy investment in anthrax as a poor man's alternative to nukes. I don't want to oversell this, because I think the first interpretation is arguable, but I couldn't help but be amused by the CDC director's apparent freudian slip during the interview, substituting "anthrax" for "smallpox." It does fit with my idea that their is a disconnect between what these people are worried about behind the scenes, and the comfortably hypothetical proxy threats they talk about in public (smallpox, suitcase nukes, dirty nukes, etc.)

is this a different vaccine for a different "strain" of militarized small pox, you think?

My question here would be ... how would they know exactly what the strain was unless they had some of it? Something, I'm not sure just exactly what, is bothering me about all this smallpox vaccination stuff.

Thought I heard they cut the regular vaccine dosage in half or thirds. They may not know the effectiveness of this diluted vaccine.

I found it interesting that those treated by chemotherapy are not eligible for the vaccine due to a weakened immune system.

Sure is ironic, how chemo can help treat cancer, but is a detrement when it comes to smallpox.