US Starts High-Speed Smallpox Vaccine Programme

New Scientist ^ | 10-25-2001 | Emma Young

[tallhappy]

Small Pox bump

Picture from this article in the J. American Medical association.

[blam]

"More will die if they wait until there is a case."

Not to mention the panic and the subsequent economic impact. The time to vaccinate is now when it can be done at at slow methodical and accurate pace, not during a panic situation.

[Jim Noble]

>> but health secretary Tommy Thompson wants the process to take just one year<<

We don't have a year.

[JenB]

Irrelevant trivia note: did you know that the very word vaccination comes from the Latin word for cow, because the first mass inoculations were against smallpox and the 'vaccine' came from cows?

[Jim Noble]

>>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<<

When the first case is diagnosed, don't think twice. Don't even think once. Just get vaccinated.

[Jim Noble]

>>What the hell is wrong with these people<<

Too much time spent with trial lawyers.

[FITZ]

I believe that smallpox is spread much like colds and flus, which means "clean" people are going to get it just as easily as others. Same with chickenpox, epidemics race through a population only with this disease the results are terrible. We will be no better off than the people in North and South America when smallpox hit them, if anything it'll be far worse because we aren't isolated towns and villages like they were back then, people travel much more, if smallpox pops up in New York City, it will be in Chicago withing hours.

[FITZ]

What we need to do is get a hold of one vaccine. We know exactly what we can do from that point on.

[FITZ]

You might be immune for life, it depends on if your memory cells against vaccinia still exist in your body, and most likely if you aren't completely immune, you'd just get a less serious case and fight it off faster----but you'd still be contagious and could spread it to people around you who have no immunity at all. People who ever received chemotherapy could easily have lost all their immunity.

[freeperfromnj]

P.S. Remember how for months (even befor 9/11) the government had been leaking out warnings of anthrax?

I was just thinking the exact same thing. Put that together with what Cheney keeps saying about how for the first time we're going to lose a lot more citizens here at home than our military is overseas and you come up with one scary scenario.

[estrogen]

Oh goody. Better late than never. Maybe a substantial number of us will still be around to benefit.

I really wonder why we are caught with our pants down on this. As citizens and taxpayers, isn't it the governments duty according to the Constitution to "protect and defend" its citizens? It is a known fact that this threat of smallpox terrorism was warned against four yrs ago and ignored by our past President. If for no other reason than he was too busy protecting his a-- from many illegal activities, he should be burned at the stake. I am really angry at our elected officials for wasting their time on petty bipartisanship bickering when they could have been doing something worthwile like protecting it's citizens.

If people don't wake up and start electing decent people who want to serve because they are patriotic and love their country, we are doomed.

[piasa]

Whale.to is NOT a reliable source of information. Many homeopathy sites, enviro-wacko sites, and quackery sites selling vitamin formulations, etc., are out there which make some pretty ludicrous or poorly researched claims.

Source

"http://www.whale.to/Vaccines/smallpox.html: Claims that smallpox has not been eradicated and that smallpox vaccination causes syphilis (on the basis of an 1883 report).

[Malesherbes]

Smallpox is a virus, not bacteria - so I'm not sure that anti-bacterial agents would do any good. But I agree with the main thrust of your comment, e.g. earlier generations'exposure to cow-pox.

[ClearCase_guy]

Smallpox is a virus, not bacteria - so I'm not sure that anti-bacterial agents would do any good. But I agree with the main thrust of your comment, e.g. earlier generations'exposure to cow-pox.

I'm no doctor, but my feeling is opposite. Nowadays, most Americans eat many calories of high quality food. We have warm houses, good air circulation and many medicines to treat a disease symptomatically. Now, I'm certainly not saying that smallpox is not to be feared, but my guess is that mortality would be less than 30%.

Just think of earlier societies fighting this disease on 1000 calories a day, in a drafty, smokey home, with some quack probably leeching blood out of their arm every couple days. I have a hard time believing that we cannot surpass their survivability rates.

[rolling_stone]

I read most of the articles linked to whale site and found the corellation to syphilis to be taken out of context. There are numerous books, as well as medical articles written on the current debate about vaccinations.Far from being a lunatic fringe that question the value of vaccines, there is in fact evidence to suggest that vaccinations are not all they are cracked up to be. As far as those against vaccinations receiving compensation, that goes ten times over for those in the medical profession who vaccinate their patients.

I have an open mind on the subject and suggest some study be done on how our government has denied things like agent orange and gulf war syndrom then had to change their position when the evidence became overwhelming.

The medical profession as well as the legal profesion are known for keeping a tight rein on those things that produce income for them.

Here are some other sites that question vaccinations, not IMO lunatics:

http://www.euroelsav.net/link7.htm

http://www.vaccines.net/gulfwar.htm

http://www.unc.edu/~aphillip/www/vaccine/dvm1.htm#20

thanks for you input I will continue on in my quest for information....

[BearPaw1]

Smallpox is a virus, antibiotics will not help, except for secondary infection.

[Darnright]

Ugh, chickenpox. My 12 year old daugher somehow escaped this disease up until now. My husband freaked when he saw her first couple of spots (with all the hoopla about smallpox). Poor kid looks like a 2 legged red splotch. She's been on acyclovir (the medicine they give to Herpes patients), but I can't see where it's helped all that much.

When we took her to the doctor, they whisked her right into a room, rather than expose everybody else to the virus, thank goodness.

[FITZ]

I have a hard time believing that we cannot surpass their survivability rates.

It could go either way I suppose, on one hand we are healthier, we have IV therapy to prevent someone from becoming dehydrated, we are better nourished. But on the other hand, we are very mobile unlike people in the past who spent time in one town and diseases traveled more slowly. We have no immunity at all against this disease and people in the past often did from natural exposure to cowpox and to the more minor form of smallpox.

[FITZ]

first couple of spots (with all the hoopla about smallpox)

That would be scary. I exposed my kids to chickenpox when they were very young because it's a very mild disease in small children but a lot rougher on a teenager or adult. If smallpox is anything close to being as contagious, we'd be in serious trouble because chickenpox spreads through a school very quickly. Same with colds and flus, no matter how clean you are, you will catch those if you aren't living in a bubble.