Mass smallpox vaccination prepared

Millions of doses of the smallpox vaccine are to be stockpiled by the government to prepare for mass vaccination in the event of a bio-terrorist attack. The Department of Health said that while there was no evidence of a specific threat it was carrying out "intensive planning" just in case. Key health workers, including doctors and nurses, will be first to be offered the vaccine. They will form the first line of defence in any outbreak, caring for those taken ill in isolation.We should have in place enough vaccine to vaccinate on a mass population basis if necessary ....

However, Dr Ian Gibson, Labour MP and chairman of the Commons science and technology committee, said the government should be vaccinating the entire population and not just healthworkers. "We should move as quickly as possible to innoculating the whole population," he told the BBC. Dr Gibson added that a biological attack on the UK "will happen eventually". He said: "I'm sure somebody will try it."

Isn't there evidence that Iraq has been experimenting with camelpox? I wonder if it would be possible to genetically modify it into something nasty.

True. If they have a genetically-modified smallpox then all the vaccination in the world is likely useless, and we're all doomed. I think that's a fairly unlikely possibility, given that "Dr. Germ" is reportedly far from an evil genius -- she's just evil. OTOH, Saddam does have a track record of seeking out the best and the brightest for his "special weapons" programs (remember Dr. Bull, of "Supergun" fame), so, you never know.

Alternatively, it could be the source of a vaccine effective against smallpox.

Then again, maybe they really are worried about their camels. It is the Middle East, after all.

Basically, in considering threats, you have to make a comparative judgment about the evidence that each specific threat is credible, the likely damage, and the cost and feasibility of countermeasures. I see too many people on this site running around like chickens with their heads cut off and screaming "Blue Murder!" over remote, hypothetical threats, when a very concrete and much more serious threat is clearly in the public domain.

Mind you, I think this response is, in part, by design of the authorities. Smallpox scares provide people with a justification for worrying about Saddam Hussein and for pushing forward with civil defense, but they are not so concrete that people are actually going to change their lives or eceonomic behaviour because of them. Thus such hypothetical proxy scares (smallpox, dirty bombs, suitcase nukes) address the conflicting aims of the policymaker -- the desire to build needed support for war preparations, with the desire to avoid handing the aggressor a psychological and economic victory.

"Those 1 billion deaths didn't come with modern vaccine, medical and quarantine procedures ready to go."

If anything, they were probably the "good old days" of smallpox.

Current smallpox would be modified to make it super hot. Preston quotes a number of USAMRID personel who feel that the soviets modified smallpox to make our vacine ineffective. According to the former head of their bio-weapon program, they typically tried to make pathogens triple-immunne to our treatments.

As for modern quarantine procedures, all of those procedures are modeled after natural outbreaks. The "ring vacination" method that led to wiping out smallpox doesn't work if you have humans causing outbreaks aimed at maximum damage. It is like trying to fight a forest fire with an invisible pyromanic running behind the lines starting more fires.

If you look at the mortaility rate, the amazing ease at which the virus spreads in the air, the "per-generation" growth rate it would have in modern society, the lack of a treatment, and the pure horror the mechanics of the disease inflict the only rational, well thought out response is that of grave concern.

There is a very good chance that vaccination won't work anyway.

A small quote from Preston's new book. He is quoting two USAMRID people who go to a symposium on poxvirus and see a presentation poster by Ronald Jackson about a modified mousepox that voided the nautural and vaccine resistance of mice.

The mice were naturally resistant to mousepox, and some of them had also been vaccinated. Even so, the engineered vius had sacked them. It had wiped out a hundred percent of the naturally reistant mice and sity percent of the immunized mice.

The Austrailian scientists had added a single foreign gene, ...

If a pox that crashes through a vaccine could be made for mice, then one could probably be made for men.

My God, Peter, can you believe what these jackasses have done?, Moyer blurted.

...they'd done it by putting a single gene from the mouse into the virus... Child's play. "Holy shit," he said.

It makes me wonder if the vaccination strategy for smallpox would work, Moyer said.

I did a quick search and found the abstract:

Expression of Mouse Interleukin-4

I don't mean to be insulting, but I've seen hundreds of single sided doomsayers here. On whatever subject, they've read a book or two by a panic pimp, dug into some web sites of other's who'd done so and have just enough information to think they know what they're talking about… So all the people in authority have their head in the sand, and it's they that know the reality of it all."

Sometimes it's impossible to prove them wrong due to the nature of the threat or conspiracy, at least without buying the book. Other times I think it's the same people going from one panic to another, never learning that they're just prone to be preyed on by the people pushing this stuff.

I don't know you. Perhaps you’re a reasonable person most of the time. Or perhaps you just finished eating your Y2K supplies and are ready to give it another go. Perhaps you're now one of the pimps and have an interest in that book and are here to promote sells. Who knows… All I know is how to recognize the fear mongering, the lack of balance in the extraordinary claims and the quick reference to something like a book with devilish flaming colors on the cover. Take care.

"Perhaps you’re a reasonable person most of the time."

We both agree that reason the key here. This is the definition of reason from the dictionary:

Reason: Good judgment; sound sense.

If you were standing outside during bad weather, and numerous leaders in the field of weather said that their was a significant risk of a tornado heading straight for your position, what would be the reasonable respone? Would it be to sit there and proclaim that you are not going to give in to "fear mongering" and that you abhor "chicken little" types?

The resonable response would be to run like hell.

The book by Preston is a non-fiction book that is his telling of stories that people in the field have had. All of the people in the book are real. Preston, himself, is really understated on all of it. You can get a feel for him via this link: Preston thread on FR

The quote I took from the book before are two people Peter Jahrling (of USAMRIID) and Ricard Moyer (a poxvirus expert). Jahrling's team identified (properly) the antrhax attack as being weapon's grade within hours of the letter being opened. It took the FBI 9 days to figure out he was right.

Some of the people who are gravely concerned about a smallpox attack:

Peter Jahrling, USAMRIID

D.A. Henderson, Headed up WHO's smallpox eradication. Director of Office of Public Health Emergency Preparedness & Response

Ken Alibek, former head of Soviet bio-weapons program, Bio-prepart.

In addition to governement people in the know warning us, the facts sanity check. I sanity checked his assertion by pulling up the abstract for the modifed pox virus that defeats vaccination.

If you want to show that you are unshakable in the face of threat, that's ok. But I don't, personally, believe that it is resonable to ignore knowledable people, who are current directing government policy, when they say there is a significant threat.

"If you were standing outside during bad weather, and numerous leaders in the field of weather said that their was a significant risk of a tornado"

I'm sorry, but one really doesn’t have to read beyond that sentence to see where you're going. I don’t deny that there's a risk of heavy casualties. But if there were a few charlatans out peddling end of the world tornado scenarios for $19.95 plus shipping and handling while most of the meteorological establishment feels somewhat prepared, you'd say it's snake oil.

Personally, I think you have a tenuous grasp on reasoning at best or your wouldn't have led with that analogy. The danger's there, but there's another side that you won't acknowledge. "There's none so blind as those that will not see". You'd be doing yourself a favor to list the contra indicators. I bet you'd be challenged to list 5 reasons that everything Preston's supplementing his living off of will fail to materialize. I could list 10. Is it because I'm suborn, brilliant, or just an ordinary reasonable guy? You decide for yourself. Good luck.

Up until your last post I thought you were actually interested in a dialog.

If you disagree with me that is fine. But you have to backup your opinion with something. The only thing so far you have talked about is the vaccine and the procedure of ring vaccination. I have responed to those. If you wish to disagree, do so with data/fact.

Preston (the author) is not making any claims, per se. He is quoting living people who are, literally, the first people called (and were called) when a bio-attack occurs. USAMRIID received the anthrax from the letter attack. They were the very first one's to analyize it. They ARE the authority. Their top people in smallpox are "gravely" concerned. Preston, in this capacity, is a reporter relaying their comments.

Disagree? Fine. But do so with data and fact. Your consistant response to any data is simply "fear-mongering! clicken little!".

Want to discuss if smallpox is available to hostile people? Do so.

Want to discuss if smallpox can be bio-engineered with simple knowledge? Do so.

Want to discuss if smallpox can be delivered as a weapon? Do so.

Want to discuss whether vaccines will work? Do so.

"There's none so blind as those that will not see. There's none so mute as those that will not talk"

"Preston (the author) is not making any claims, per se. He is quoting living people who are, literally, the first people called (and were called) when a bio-attack occurs. "

Same thing. I don't have to back up my dismissal of your billion death fear mongering claims with facts any more than I have to do the same with trilateralists, Y2K survivalists or those that claim our economy is about to collapse. They all find authority figures to lend indirect support for their claims as well. The fear mongering nature of what little I've seen of the book you use as a starting point for debate and a few of your early posts put you in that same category. I have no desire to dissect and authenticate his sources when the subject is presented in such a flagrantly one-sided manner that hypes it to the edge of believability in order to increase sales.

Well I really can't speak to trilateralists, Y2K suvival, or about the future of the economy since I don't really know about those things.

But if Alan Greenspan were to say he felt "gravely concerned" about the economy I would sit up and take notice. If you do not know who D.A Henderson is, that is fine. There is nothing wrong with not knowing who he is.

Likewise, if you don't know anything about smallpox or viruses that is also fine. We all pick and choose what subject we want to learn. There are many subject I don't know about.

You also don't want to discuss data or facts about smallpox. Which, again, is fine. There are many subject I don't wish to discuss.

But, frankly, if you don't know about this subject and you don't want to talk about the facts/data/issues of the subject, then you should really not inject yourself into the discussion.

Henderson's job is to be gravely concerned. If the Surgeon General (the equivalent of Alan Greenspan) ever uses that language, it's probably a signal that the vaccination program for healthcare workers or the population is to begin.

It looks like you're interested in analogies. Here's an imperfect one, but it should help.

Someone posts an article analyzing racial tensions following some Rodney King type incident that you feel the need to weigh in on as people are promoting the idea of an upcoming racial warfare. Perhaps you're just concerned about public perception here getting out of control. (This is the imperfect part of the analogy. A story of racial tension can't get out of control like public fears of bio warfare, but bear with me.) Someone responds to you (like you did to me in post 10) and says:

"The more I learn about the ethnic hatred, the more chicken little looked like a prophet.
Here is the book link."

Granted, Preston's quite a bit more lucid than this guy, but he does look suspicious, tripling historic deaths from those listed in the article, and the risk of panic is many times worse. I posted here with an interest in making people aware of what panic can do, not in digging into the details of smallpox. Nevertheless, I just took about an hour to skim Preston's abstract and to research a few questions elsewhere.

It looks like we're unsure if Saddam has smallpox and if everyone involved is willing to use it. It looks like there's some possibility that an attack might not be as effective as predicted. It looks like we're nearing preparations for vaccinating our population if needed, but it looks like there's some danger in doing so .

More than debating the mechanics of smallpox, I'm interested in the mechanics of panic. I see that you were here when a dozen anthrax deaths put a little dent in our economy. What do you think an announcement of anthrax attack by some 22 year old al-Qaeda mid-level grease ball during our Iraq attack would do to our economy? How fast do you think a rumor of symptoms would spread across this and other forums?

I'm not arguing that there's no danger. I'm asking what is the risks and benefits of hyping it?

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