Smallpox vaccination in USA, Canada, France and UK

Pravda ^ | 112/04/02 | Timothy BANCROFT-HINCHEY

[FormerLurker]

The debate pretty much ended after the eradication of the disease.

Give me the reasons why smallpox was eradicated.

[Sabertooth]

  a. Figures for 1922 not yet available.

Flag me when you get the 1922 figures. Until then, I'm not leaving my house.

[Paleo Conservative]

He did call for ending smallpox vaccinations in Britain, arguing that smallpox was so rare in Britain that the vaccine killed more than the disease itself. But keep in mind- this was 1962 when he spoke out.

Keep in mind, wisdom comes in later years...

It was only thanks to the previous vaccination efforts that that the rate of smallpox had declined to that level. Due to the erradication of naturally ocurring smallpox, achieved by ring vaccination around reported cases, efforts to develop safer vaccines for smallpox were abandoned. According to statistics recorded in 1968, virtually all the deaths or injuries caused by the smallpox vaccine occurred in people with compromised immune systems, people with eczema, or children under 10. At this point the vaccinations are strictly voluntary for civilians. The 500,000 emergency and health workers, and the 500,000 are healthy adults who are unlikely to have adverse reactions to the vaccine. Even if some of this group have some side effects, modern medicine has much more effective treatments for them than existed 30 years ago when routine smallpox vaccinations were stopped.

The more healthy people, who are low risk for complications from the smallpox vaccine, get vaccinated the greater the herd immunity to smallpox. This herd immunity will help protect those who are unvaccinated or can not tolerate the vaccine. The consequences of not having voluntary vaccination now, may be involuntary vaccination in the event of a smallpox attack. Also, the strain of smallpox used by the Russian biowarfare program had a fality rate of 50% in unvaccinated people who got the disease. It would be foolish not to be prepared for an attack.

[FormerLurker]

It would be foolish not to be prepared for an attack.

It would be foolish to ignore prominent researchers that say vaccinations actually WEAKEN the immune system, for if it IS true, then we are in even worse shape if we DO vaccinate...

[Stefan Stackhouse]

Funny, my father was the director of immunization at CDC between the 1970's and the 1980's. If you got an immunization shot during those years, he is the one responsible for it.

What's his take on the degree of residual immunity left for those of us who got our shots back when they were still giving them in the 50s and 60s?