Posted on 10/25/2001 3:21:26 PM PDT by blam
US starts high-speed smallpox vaccine programme
17:50 25 October 01
Emma Young
The US government has asked national drug companies to produce and speed-test new smallpox vaccines. New vaccines usually spend several years in trials but health secretary Tommy Thompson wants the process to take just one year.
The US government has reportedly promised to legally indemnify manufacturers, in the event of any court cases over vaccine side-effects.
Smallpox was officially declared globally eradicated in 1980, and very few people in the US were vaccinated after 1972. But military stockpiles of the virus do exist, and authorities fear it could be used in a bioterrorist attack.
No US vaccine-maker currently produces smallpox vaccines. But 10 have responded to the government's call for a feasibility and cost estimate. Thompson wants production to start by the end of 2001, and trials of the vaccine to run concurrently.
"Twelve months is a very short time, but it is doable," says Norman Begg of the UK Vaccine Industry Group. "The principles of smallpox vaccination are very well known."
Cowpox infection
Thompson's goal is to have 250 million doses of smallpox vaccine stockpiled by the end of 2002. These vaccines, along with existing stocks of the old vaccine and a contracted 54 million doses from a UK company, would be sufficient to vaccinate the whole population.
The US has 15 million doses of the old smallpox vaccine, which was given to millions of people worldwide. This vaccine was created by scraping the bellies of calves, infecting them with cowpox and purifying material taken from the pustules to make the vaccine.
"Now of course, using animals is no longer acceptable," says Lyndsay Wright of Acambis, a UK company developing new ways of producing the vaccine using cell cultures in the lab. Using the old technique would also raise fears that cow viruses could be transmitted to humans.
Acambi signed an initial contract with the US government in 2000 for 40 million doses created using "clean" cell cultures within a few years. Following the US anthrax attacks, this contract has been upgraded to 54 million doses by the end of 2002. Researchers working in Japan and Holland are also thought to have developed smallpox vaccines using cell cultures.
Ring vaccination
The US government says it is not planning to vaccinate the whole population against smallpox unless attacks make it necessary. If a case is detected, authorities would "ring vaccinate" people in the surrounding area.
The vaccine - which would contain live viral particles - would be expected to produce some side effects. Approximately one in 18,000 people who received the old virus developed severe infections.
Smallpox kills one third of infected people. It is easily transmitted from person to person and has an incubation period of between seven and 17 days. The first symptoms are a high fever, headaches and backaches. There is no known cure.
"Smallpox, because of its high case-fatality rates and transmissibility, now represents one of the most serious bioterrorist threats to the civilian population," said Donald Henderson of Johns Hopkins University, earlier in 2001. Henderson led the global eradication programme.
Combine this with the news that some of the cowpox vaccine will be coming from the home of mad cow disease (noted somewhere on FR last week)..it might be worth a second thought
Vaccines after an epidemic don't do much.
Small pox is only a threat as a bio-weapon because it no longer exists as a common communicable disease.
If not for this threat there is no need to produce large amounts of the vaccine. And there is no reason to stockpile it. The idea of a vaccine is to immunize people before they are exposed to the virus.
Thanks for posting this.
The US government says it is not planning to vaccinate the whole population against smallpox unless attacks make it necessary. If a case is detected, authorities would "ring vaccinate" people in the surrounding area.If a case is detected???
Gee, thanks. From the bottom of our hearts, all of us random Americans chosen by the luck of the draw to be in the "detected" group. Would have been nice to vaccinate everyone, before any cases are "detected", but hey, you're from the government and I know you're looking out for our best interests!
I read a post earlier where someone mentioned that this 1 in 3 ratio is based on the lifestyle and immune systems of 50 or 60 years ago. Back when they did the study, country folks had already been exposed to to cow pox and many other maladies, and had better immune systems. Most antibiotics were fairly new, and diseases weren't antibiotic resistant yet. Everyone wasn't using anti-bacterial soaps and eating meat that had been fed antibiotics.
The ratio could be higher.
PC bullsh!t is going to be the ruin of this once great nation. I was going to say that this is hard to believe (that we can't use cattle for cowpox), but it's not.
But what do I know.
It is generous to call one "a view", but, if so, OK, there are two views.
One based on reality, one not. One right, one wrong.
The anti-vaccine lunatic fringe do not distribute accurate information. It is part of the same strange psychological dynamic that brings us lunatic environmentalism and animal rightsim.
The small pox vaccine was given for decades all over the world and resulted in the erradication of the disease -- one that killed millions of people.
There is not time or patience to indulge the lunatic fringe at this time.
I would say that it is time to seriously consider getting vaccinated.
This is a no-win situation for the government. If they wait for a detected case, some people will die. If they go ahead and give the vaccine ahead of time, some people will die and others will get very sick, and the government will be still be accused of of ignorance and/or not caring. Especially if they do it and no attack ever materializes.
Question!!! At what point did the immunity cease to exist for us? Were folks in our port cities given boosters that we didn't know about? Were the medical experts liars when they said the protection was for life, "OR" is there a new variety of this old virus that we need to consider?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.