New Fears About Smallpox Vaccine

(CBS) Three months into the smallpox inoculation campaign, sources say the government is doing an about-face and will let states stop administering the high-risk vaccine, if they choose, reports CBS News Correspondent Sharyl Attkisson.

That's a sharp contrast to the original rush to vaccinate a half-million health care workers as a frontline defense against a possible bio-terror attack. So far, only 35,000 of the targeted workers have been inoculated.

Dr. Brian Strom of the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine heads the independent advisory committee that urged the government to slow – or stop – its program.

"This is a toxic vaccine. We should only use it in people who need it," says Strom. "And we need a few weeks or months to just step back and say let's replan the plans to see how many people need to get the vaccine before we continue on with it."

The turnaround comes amid serious and unexpected adverse events in the first people to get the shots.

An aggressive government surveillance program set up to detect any dangerous trends recently uncovered one: 11 cases of unusual heart inflammation among military troops who got the smallpox vaccine; three civilian deaths are also under investigation.

But CBS News has learned of one high-profile death that hasn't yet been counted – that of NBC Correspondent David Bloom. He died of an apparent blood clot several weeks after getting both the smallpox and anthrax vaccines.

Asked if Bloom's death should be counted and reported since he had the smallpox vaccination and died within a period of weeks, Strom says, "Yes."

The link between the smallpox vaccines and blood clots like Bloom's isn't widely accepted in the medical community, but has been claimed for years by some doctors. All adverse events are required to be reported so researchers can look for new, dangerous trends and see whether the vaccine may be at fault.

Strom says it would be "a surprise if we did not see new adverse reactions emerge."

Bloom's case may have mistakenly gone uncounted because civilians are being monitored under a civilian system and the military is tracking the troops. But it's unclear who – if anybody – is tracking the hundreds of civilian journalists who embedded with the military during the war with Iraq.

Bloom's case would make four deaths under investigation for a possible link to the smallpox vaccine. Already considered the riskiest of its kind, the smallpox vaccine may be even more dangerous than anyone thought.

Well gee, based on that logic of "proximity to vaccination" I bet the vaccine can be blamed for getting hit with an AK round, having a car accident and falling in the shower.
I sure hope all the folks so dead set on not vaccinating are right about the relative threat of a smallpox attack. Cause if they are wrong, the number of lives lost is gonna be huge. (speaking as someone who has been vaccinated recently).

I was vaccinated against smallpox as a small child & again in the 60's, as were 2 of my 3 children. Before 1972 (?) everyone was vaccinated. I don't remember hearing this was a dangerous vaccine. What is different now? Is it the fact that there are so many unvaccinated people & they are afraid they will catch smallpox from the newly vaccinated? What?

Good questions. I was wondering the same thing. I was born in the early '60s, everyone was vaccinated then. What has changed?

You can't get smallpox from the vaccine. it uses a similar virus, the vaccinia virus that causes a much milder local infection but still protects against smallpox. Some of the concern now is the believed increase in immunocompromised individuals, cancer patients, AIDS, etc. Some of the concern is that the vaccination is a primary vaccination in older patients instead of kids. It's also not exactly the same vaccine as the one in the past. So frankly I'm not sure just why the concern is as high as it is.

I don't remember hearing this was a dangerous vaccine

You also didn't have so many trial lawyers filing lawsuits either.

As long as the smallpox still existed in human populations the risks of the old vaccines were considered acceptable. What's really needed are newer vaccines that are much safer. I have posted on several previous threads about this issue.

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