[afraidfortherepublic]

This is a huge win for the cause of individual liberty and self-defense since the CDC and its Advisory Committee on Immunization Practice has opposed allowing ordinary Americans to get the vaccine.

I dunno. My personal physician (whom I trust implicitly) has warned that we could be in for some very nasty side effects if we are forced to take smallpox vaccine again. Of course everyone in my fmily has already had it years ago, but there are the grandchildren to consider.

[Thud]

The real problem isn't the risk of complications among those vaccinated against smallpox, which is no greater than for the whooping cough vaccine mandatory for infants. The real risk is of secondary infections among those who aren't innoculated against smallpox.

Smallpox vaccinations are often fatal for the immune-impaired, especially those with AIDS/HIV. Immune-impairment is usually caused by medical treatment, commonly for heart ailments and cancer, diseases like hepatitis, and intravenous drug use. AIDS/HIV victims are only a small fraction of the millions of immune-impaired Americans. Many people with functioning immune systems but other conditions, both normal (pregnant ladies, babies under a year old, etc.) and abnormal (some skin disorders, especially eczema), are more susceptible to vaccination-caused complications which sometimes afflict even the healthiest. These groups should not be vaccinated.

The major problem is that people vaccinated against smallpox are briefly dangerous to these groups. Smallpox vaccine uses a "live" virus related to smallpox, called vaccinia, which produces a small oozing sore on the inoculation site 2-3 days later which quickly scabs over, plus flu-like symptoms. About a third have the oozing sore and flu symptoms for longer periods - sometimes several weeks. Contact with pus from the sores (even dried pus floating off and inhaled) can cause a fatal or crippling vaccinia infection in the immune-impaired or complication-susceptible, though that is far less likely to happen than through vaccination.

Experts therefore additionally recommend against smallpox vaccinations of any persons living with the immune-impaired and complication-susceptible. This totals about 25 percent of all Americans.

The usual way to protect people from such secondary infections is to have those recently innoculated whose vaccination sores are still oozing wear a bandage - something like the big knee/ankle bandaid you can find in drugstores - until the sore scabs over. Back when vaccinations were mandatory this was a tiny proportion of the population on any given day, and those were almost entirely young children who stayed at home anyway.

But if millions of adults are voluntarily vaccinated, hundreds of thousands of them will be out on the streets posing threats to the immune-impaired and complication-susceptible. Thousands of them might die, and several times that number could be crippled.

This is not an easy decision.

[wimpycat]

I'm glad my mom got me vaccinated when they weren't routinely giving them anymore (but before they stopped altogether). I'm hoping it still counts for something. I've got a scar on the back of my shoulder, so it may as well make itself useful.

[Let's Roll]

Where were all these nasty side effects years ago? If no one you knew had any side effects years ago why would it be different today? I know, I know auto-immune diseases etc. Well if that is the case, those with auto-immune diseases don't have to take the vaccine. This side effects issue is being used to keep us from demanding the vaccine.