[ignatz_q]

I've been making essentially this same argument for weeks. While the CDC has to cover their bases, the immunization protocol used before the erradication of smallpox means that the worst case scenarios of immunity lasting only a few years simply can't be true for most recipients.

[alethia]

Thanks for the post, ignatz_q. The thing that struck me about this information is that a smallpox attack against our country is an attempt to wipe out our future by attacking our children and our young people. Anyone who thinks otherwise is ignorant or a fool.

The gravity of this is almost too much to process. I had my vaccine back in 1956. My husband had his in 1955 or 1956. Our son, who is 22, was not vaccinated. I am totally enraged at the mere thought.

[arkfreepdom]

True, but if 30% of our children die, life will not be worth living for many people.

[Sabertooth]

data from a 1902-1903 smallpox outbreak in Liverpool, England, strongly suggests otherwise. A study analyzed the impact of the disease on 1,163 Liverpudlians, 943 who received the vaccine during infancy, and 220 who were never vaccinated. The study further separated people by age and by the severity of their disease. In the oldest age group, 50 and above, 93 percent of the vaccinated people escaped severe disease and death. In contrast, 50 percent of the unvaccinated in that age bracket died, and another 25 percent had severe disease. To put it plainly, the vaccine offered remarkable protection after 50 years.

[manx]

I wonder if the arabs are that stupid. If they release smallpox here, it will kill some of us but we will get it under control pretty quickly.

However, it is bound to spread to other parts of the world where they don't have money for prevention. It is bound to get back to the middle east, with international travel the way it is now. Far more of them will die.

[Zviadist]

Now I get it: this whole friggin thing is a plot by the geriatric crowd to keep their social security. The lengths these people go to...

[Deborah63]

Can someone tell me hat the Small pox vaccine scar looks like? I have heard differing ideas. I thought the large scar was a polio vaccine...but perhaps I am wrong. D

[syriacus]

This IS good news. Far better than what we thought. At least we'll have the older folks around to nurse the younger ones back to health, until vaccinations are given out.

I'm glad you posted this.

[abner]

The entire population isn't at extreme risk in the event of a smallpox attack.

Great news! Its just the children at risk. All of the children.

I'm not worried about me, just my son.

[Anotherpundit]

PErsonally, I've been wondering if they could just bioengineer a strain of cowpox to be airborne contagious (and, of course, make double-damn-sure its' "safe",) then spread it out among the populace deliberately.

[rwfromkansas]

Well, this is from Slate...but in any case, MAYBE we are not as bad off as we had thought. I would not bet.....even a dollar on it though.

[blam]

Isn't Herpes in the pox family?...and might that offer some immunity?

[Skibane]

For the good news on anthrax, see this previous Slate piece by Jon Cohen.

Your link just goes back to the Smallpox article. Hopefully, here's the correct link to the Anthrax piece.

[TomB]

A couple of points on smallpox, and its vaccine.

The decision to end immunizations for smallpox after eradication was the only logical choice considering there is a (very) small chance of sickness or death from the vaccination. While the risks were worth it compared to the mortality rate of the disease, it is not worth it to continue it just for piece of mind.

As far as the disease itself, the most important thing to remember is that it is NOT contagious in its initial stages. Only after the appearance of the telltale rash, usually after 10 or 12 days, does the disease become contagious. However, once the rash does appear, the patient becomes very weak and is likely to be bedridden by that time. This means that containing the disease is much easier that you've been led to believe.

Also, as we are seeing with anthrax, the mortality rate is going to be much lower than expected because of newer treatments.

On the whole, smallpox, while potentially dangerous, is very controllable.

[MadelineZapeezda]

I just recently learned from my mother in law that her 2 sisters had small pox in the 1930's. 2 girls out of a family of 8 children. (The parents were vaccinated prior to coming to America as immigrants.) The good news is that they both survived and are still living today with no side effects. The family was quarintined and the siblings were vaccinated immediately by the county Board of Health.

[aruanan]

In the oldest age group, 50 and above, 93 percent of the vaccinated people escaped severe disease and death. In contrast, 50 percent of the unvaccinated in that age bracket died, and another 25 percent had severe disease. To put it plainly, the vaccine offered remarkable protection after 50 years.

But, but, all the anti-vaccinationists tell us that this is simply due to better sanitation. Could it be that being vaccinated actually causes people to move to areas of better sanitation and so escape the disease or at least contract weaker strains that, presumably, exist in areas of better sanitation? Ha ha ha ha.

[ccmay]

As the CDC's Leduc says, "This is not going to be a wildfire that overtakes the world."

Seems to me that it could take over the world without necessarily affecting us badly. Census figures show that Third World countries have much younger (and therefore unvaccinated) populations than the aging democracies of the West. Half of Pakistan is supposed to be less than 24 years old, for example.

Add this to the squalid, overcrowded living conditions and weak public health authorities of the Third World, and it seems to me that smallpox could spread like wildfire there, while sparing us from significant harm-- if we let it. We would not do this because we are a good and kind people with immense resources.

If there should be even a single case anywhere in the world, we can be sure the CDC would be at the front lines helping to vaccinate and quarantine the outbreak. Count on us to do our best to bring peace and health and prosperity to the world.

We have made some mistakes along the way, but let us dwell instead on the good things that Western civilization and in particular the US have given the world, and be of good cheer. Vaccinations, food aid, the Green Revolution, the GPS system, the US Navy guarding free passage on the high seas, the Internet, intercontinental air transport, and the list goes on. What have the savage dark parts of the world contributed to human happiness? Practically nothing since someone invented Arabic (really Indian or Chinese) numerals a millenium ago.

No wonder they hate us so much. They are so inferior to us in every way. At the root of Islamic rage is nothing more than a festering envy and abject sense of impotence.

-ccm

[Clinton's a rapist]

James Leduc, the CDC's resident smallpox authority, concedes that the conventional wisdom posted on the CDC's Web site might not tell the whole story. "The issues that you are raising are absolutely accurate and well founded," he says. "What you see on the Web site is a first attempt to get a consistent message out," he says, explaining that the public health quandaries-such as the need to produce more vaccine-sometimes overshadow the scientific ones.

This CDC flak seems to be saying that his agency's policy is to just make stuff up to advance their agenda. The Carl Sagan approach to science.

[djf]

Liverpudlians...

Gotta love it!
ROFL

[bimbo]

A Smallpox attack is not too likely. The last known case of the disease was in Africa (Kenya?) in 1977. Since then, the only known existence of the virus was at CDC in Atlanta and at a Soviet site in Siberia.

[Stefan Stackhouse]

This article seems to ring true with what I remember from my childhood in the the 50s and 60s and from what I know about how the immune system works. Once your systems makes an antibody, then my understanding is that you remain "hard wired" to make that antibody in the future if needed. There are exceptions, of course, if your immune system is damaged in some way. And it is true that if many decades pass without a need for that antibody, then the old immunice system may be a little rusty and slow to respond. But my understanding is that unless the virus mutates (thus making the antibody ineffective), a healthy system should still be capable of responding with antibodies. It is the tendency of viruses to mutate that most commonly requires new vaccination. The influenza virus mutates rapidly enough to require annual vaccinations, while the common cold exists in so many different mutant forms that it is not feasible to develop a vaccine at all, given that it is a relatively mild disease. HIV also mutates at a rapid rate, which is a major reason why we haven't seen an HIV vaccine yet. Many other viral diseases mutate very slowly, yet as long as they are present in human populations, even at low rates of infection, some mutation is possible. Thus, there are a number of viral diseases for which one should be vaccinated at ten year intervals.

Since smallpox has not been an active infection in human populations since the mid 1970s, if terrorists were to start a new epidemic with some of the stored samples, we might presume the virus to be unchanged from what was active earlier. Thus, those immune systems that had been vacinated back when that same virus was active should be just as capable now of producing antibodies as they were back then.

This would tend to suggest that this article is right: those of us who were vaccinated when we were younger might indeed still carry in our immune systems the ability to make antibodies should we become infected. Because the immune system is old and rusty, it cannot be guaranteed that wouldn't become sick at all. But it should be good enough to give our systems a little bit of a head start against a smallpox infection. A little bit of a head start in antibody production is all we need to assure that smallpox for us would be only a minor illness.

However, if the smallpox sample is subjected to ANY genetic engineeering, no matter how minor, then all bets are off.