One in a million recipients is likely to die
Dr David Brown, PHLS
Posted on 05/29/2002 4:34:49 PM PDT by Gritty
US researchers are warning people vaccinated against smallpox as children that they are unlikely to still be protected.
Smallpox was eradicated in the mid-1970s, but researchers warn bioterrorism fears mean mass vaccination should now be reconsidered.
But experts are divided over whether research, featured in New Scientist magazine, mean there should be a renewed mass smallpox vaccination programme.
In tests, doctors from Maryland found only 6% of over 600 microbiologists who were being re-vaccinated in the late 1990s were still immune to smallpox from their earlier vaccinations.
One in a million recipients is likely to die |
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Dr David Brown, PHLS
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In America, around 60% of the population has had a smallpox vaccination, but most will be just as susceptible to smallpox as the 120m born since the government stopped the vaccination programme in 1972, the researchers say.
Britain also stopped its vaccination programme in the early 1970s.
Lack of protection
Michael Sauri, director of the Occupational Medicine Clinic in Maryland said: "The study is, to the best of my knowledge, the only one since eradication which tries to look at the durability of immunity.
"It's showing us that after 20 years immunity is not going to be there."
Bill Bicknell of Boston University, a former commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Public Health thinks the Maryland research backs up his view that there should be mass smallpox vaccination.
He believes it is necessary in case terrorists use smallpox in attacks.
"It adds to the argument that you can't count on any protection we thought we had," he said.
"I'm not saying you just go straight in and vaccinate the population - you'd do it steadily in stages."
He recommends healthcare workers should be first, followed by volunteers screened to check they're healthy.
But many argue against mass vaccination.
Uncertain risk
Like many other countries, Britain currently prefers "ring vaccination", where only people in the area of an outbreak and people they are in contact with are immunised.
Dr David Brown, director of the UK's Public Health Laboratory Service Virus Reference Division, told BBC News Online: "It's generally agreed that you've got almost complete protection against smallpox if you were vaccinated in the last three years, but it decreases from that time.
He said the arguments around vaccinating because of bioterrorism fears centred around the risk of a smallpox attack contrasted with the risks associated with mass immunisation.
"What we're not certain of is what the risk of a bioterrorist attack is. There is a risk, but it's never been well defined."
"And if we did go for mass vaccination, we would have to go for multiple vaccination - every three to five years - for full immunity."
He added: "One in a million recipients is likely to die, and that's without considering cases infected with HIV."
Illness rates, he said, would be even higher.
The Maryland research was also published in Maryland Medicine.
I'm with you. If you want a drug, you should be able to get it, but you can thank this country's current WOD's and all the policies that go along with it for your not being able to get the shot that you want.
As to getting the shot, why would you want to? The risk is quite small, in fact at the present you have a greater chance of dying from the vaccination than from the an outbreak of smallpox.
Time to visit a cattle ranch?
Really, where do you get your info?
Very interesting! I knew the story about the milkmaids, but I never heard that one.
Nope - you got smallpox, but the dz was usually not as terrible. Hey if you're going to get it anyway. . .
As to getting the shot, why would you want to? The risk is quite small, in fact at the present you have a greater chance of dying from the vaccination than from the an outbreak of smallpox.
That's because there has been no research on making a safer vaccine. The level of saftey of a vaccine used against an extinct disease must be much higher than for and endemic disease. The vaccines that are currenty in storage are made from a strain of vaccina first isolated in New York City in the 1870s. If we are not careful, we could have the same problems with Polio and other diseases that are potential targets for erradication.
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