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U.S. Seeks to Build a Stock of Vaccine Against Smallpox
New York Times ^ | Thursday, October 18, 2001 | SHERYL GAY STOLBERG

Posted on 10/17/2001 8:35:46 PM PDT by JohnHuang2

October 18, 2001

U.S. Seeks to Build a Stock of Vaccine Against Smallpox

By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG

WASHINGTON, Oct. 17 — Federal health officials are negotiating with four drug companies to buy 300 million doses of smallpox vaccine — enough for every American — and are gingerly discussing the possibility that ordinary Americans might someday once again be vaccinated against the disease.

While there are no immediate plans for vaccination, Tommy G. Thompson, the secretary of health and human services, said today that he was asking lawmakers for $509 million so that the government could stockpile enough vaccine to protect everyone in the nation against the potentially lethal smallpox virus.

"I can report to you that it looks very promising that we will have the 300 million doses by sometime next year," Mr. Thompson told reporters this evening. He said that he had met with representatives of two drug companies today, and that he would meet with two others on Thursday.

The decision to pursue more stocks of smallpox vaccine came as fears of attack with another biological agent, anthrax, spread across the country. Mr. Thompson did not say whether the recent spate of anthrax- laced letters, including one mailed to Tom Daschle, the Senate majority leader, influenced his decision. Nor did he say whether the government was aware of any specific threat involving smallpox.

Asked what prompted the policy shift, Mr. Thompson simply replied, "We thought we should go and see if we could get some other companies interested in the 300 million doses."

But Mr. Thompson is clearly acutely aware that smallpox poses a potential menace — unlike anthrax, which is not transmitted from person to person, smallpox is highly contagious.

After the Sept. 11 attacks, Mr. Thompson named Dr. Donald A. Henderson, who led the global effort to eradicate smallpox, to lead a new advisory council on bioterrorism.

In June, a war game with the code name "Dark Winter" showed what chaos could erupt from a bioterrorist attack involving smallpox. The exercise, at Andrews Air Force Base, outside Washington, began with a report of a single case of smallpox in Oklahoma City. By the time it was over, the imaginary epidemic had spread to 25 states and killed several million people. As it unfolded, growing grimmer and grimmer, the government quickly ran out of vaccine.

Smallpox vaccine can be used not only to prevent infection with the smallpox virus but also to treat people exposed to the virus, and thus contain an epidemic.

But the United States abandoned smallpox vaccinations in 1972, because the disease had been virtually wiped out here. The vaccine itself carries serious health risks: It produced adverse reactions in roughly 1 in 13,000 vaccinated people, ranging from severe rashes to brain inflammation, which killed about one person in one million.

Because of the adverse effects, experts said that the risk of vaccination was greater than the risk of getting the disease. Smallpox was effectively eradicated worldwide in 1979.

On Oct. 3, Mr. Thompson said his agency had negotiated with Acambis, a British company that makes the vaccine, to deliver 40 million doses by next summer, and not in 2004 or 2005 as originally planned. Today, he said that the Acambis contract has been expanded to 54 million doses, and that his department was negotiating with Merck & Company, one of the major vaccine makers in the United States. Mr. Thompson said his department was also negotiating with Baxter International, as well as another company he did not name.

Experts say that the chances that terrorists could lay hands on the smallpox virus — which officially exists now only in government laboratories in the United States and Russia — are remote.

"It's impossible to quantify but I would assess it to be quite low," said Jonathan B. Tucker, an expert in bioterrorism and the author of "Scourge: The Once and Future Threat of Smallpox," (Atlantic Monthly Press, 2001).

But smallpox, which kills about one of three people infected with it, is a particularly worrisome threat because it is easily transmittable.

And unlike anthrax, which would require that spores be prepared according to precise specifications to infect large numbers of people, a smallpox epidemic could begin with a single infected person — a "smallpox martyr," in the terminology of bioterrorism experts — simply walking through a crowd.

The two official laboratory repositories for smallpox, one at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta and the other at a Russian government facility in western Siberia, are monitored by the World Health Organization, and are generally thought to be secure, Dr. Tucker said.

But, he added, there are "suspicions that there are undeclared stocks of smallpox virus in Russia," particularly at a virology laboratory under control of the Russian Ministry of Defense that, he said, "remains top secret and off limits" to Westerners.

A federal intelligence report completed in 1998 concluded that clandestine stocks of smallpox virus probably existed in Russia, as well as in Iraq and North Korea.

The last case of smallpox among humans occurred in 1978, and no one has been vaccinated in this country against the disease since 1972. Even those Americans who have been vaccinated are at risk, because the vaccine's protection is believed to last only 15 or 20 years.

The growing fear of bioterrorism has renewed the question of whether Americans should be vaccinated. Today, a higher proportion of the population than in the past may run the risk of being harmed by the vaccine. It could cause serious illness in people whose immune systems are suppressed, including organ transplant recipients and people with AIDS, a disease that was not even known the last time Americans were vaccinated for smallpox.

So a decision to vaccinate Americans would not be made lightly, and Mr. Thompson emphasized today that there are no plans to do so.

But he did suggest that the government would revisit the question, a startling comment in and of itself. "Sometime in the future there may be a discussion that may lead to voluntary vaccination for the smallpox bug," he said.

Should that happen, it would constitute a huge shift in public policy. Mohammad N. Akhter, executive director of the American Public Health Association, has been publicly urging the administration to reopen the question of smallpox vaccination.

"My worry is that there will be a case in the U.S., we will rush to contain it, we will immunize some people but the level of public concern and the demand will be such that we will not be in a position to make a thoughtful decision," Dr. Akhter said today. He said the scientific community needed to "rethink the immunization priority for our people against smallpox."

The global eradication of smallpox is considered the greatest public health triumph in history.

The very idea that smallpox immunization is once again being discussed, said Dr. Irwin Redlener, president of a children's hospital at Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx, "makes us really all pause in terms of what has happened to our country."

He added: "If we have to go back to vaccinating people for smallpox, we are really about to turn back the hands of time."

For Education And Discussion Only. Not For Commercial Use.



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1 posted on 10/17/2001 8:35:46 PM PDT by JohnHuang2
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Comment #2 Removed by Moderator

To: overseer5
Gingerly. Why gingerly? Are they gingerly-cautious about telling us to give our kids the polio vaccine? What the heck is the difference? I don't want my kids' limbs racked and frozen in painful spasms leading to death or lifelong disability, and I don't want my kids' faces blistered with thousands of oozing crusted sores of death. It's a small risk with incredibly great rewards, if you love your kids. What are they afraid of? We don't panic over whooping cough--we get a shot. Criminy, we get shots for chicken pox now, and chicken pox is rarely more than a few days of missing school. I have a smallpox injection scar but you know, I'm willing to get another to be on the safe side. End of story. It's the LIBERALS who don't trust us to make sane decisions with our own health and our own money. Make the smallpox vaccine available; "if you build it, they will come."
3 posted on 10/17/2001 8:44:51 PM PDT by ChemistCat
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To: ChemistCat
Smallpox photo--don't look if you're eating
4 posted on 10/17/2001 8:49:59 PM PDT by ChemistCat
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To: JohnHuang2
For the kind of security that a new vacination program would provide, I'm willing to doo some time traveling!
5 posted on 10/17/2001 8:53:41 PM PDT by midwestmidnight
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To: JohnHuang2
. Even those Americans who have been vaccinated are at risk, because the vaccine's protection is believed to last only 15 or 20 years.

Are there any Freepers who can shed some light on the ACTUAL scientific data of the vaccine's reliability ? i was vaccinated, but my wife & kids fall outside the age limit.

6 posted on 10/17/2001 8:54:51 PM PDT by Gilbo_3
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To: JohnHuang2
a very good idea, but too late??? next year???
7 posted on 10/17/2001 8:57:58 PM PDT by blondee123
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To: JohnHuang2
"U.S. Seeks to Build a Stock of Vaccine Against Smallpox"

It's about time!

8 posted on 10/17/2001 8:58:28 PM PDT by UWhusky
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To: Gilbo_3
From everything I've read hear over the last 3 weeks - they DON'T REALLY KNOW. I saw a post talking of a woman whose ?mother? who was vaccinated in 1937, then went back to be revaxed in 1957 and it didn't take, which means the old one was still good. I've seen articles where they say 10 years. Since we really haven't had a problem in this country with smallpox, they really aren't sure from the looks of it. Keep your Immune Systems healthy. That's my 2 cents.
9 posted on 10/17/2001 9:00:54 PM PDT by goodnesswins
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To: overseer5
It's contagious, for one thing, while Anthrax is not.

Though experts debate whether smallpox, in light of medical advances since the 50s, is as much a deadly 'threat' today as it might have been in the past.

10 posted on 10/17/2001 9:01:33 PM PDT by JohnHuang2
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To: ChemistCat
Anthrax is not the worst to be in contact with. If this gets escalated into small pox, run for the hills. Some of this stuff might have come from Iran which got it from Russia. Dont think they could send small pox because it is a virus not a bacteria. There are a whole bunch of these like ebola, botulism and others we have never even heard of. Saddam is said to be mixing cocktails of 2 like smallpox and anthrax which would be resistant to antibiotics.
11 posted on 10/17/2001 9:02:15 PM PDT by Lady GOP
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To: JohnHuang2
But the United States abandoned smallpox vaccinations in 1972, because the disease had been virtually wiped out here.

OK this answered my question. So the baby boomers have all been inoculated (by and large). It's now the Gen Xers and the baby boomers' kids we have to worry about (like mine).

12 posted on 10/17/2001 9:04:20 PM PDT by NotJustAnotherPrettyFace
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To: JohnHuang2
Let's hope some company other than BioPort gets the contract. They have a rather shady and unreliable history... http://www.pbs.org/newshour/forum/october99/anthrax_5.html
13 posted on 10/17/2001 9:07:09 PM PDT by Eowyn-of-Rohan
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To: ChemistCat
"Experts say that the chances that terrorists could lay hands on the smallpox virus — which officially exists now only in government laboratories in the United States and Russia — are remote."

Prior to 911, these same experts woud've scoffed at the likelihood of 4 airliners being hijacked and used to torpedo the WTC and Pentagon...they absolutely would have scoffed. Bottomline...these experts don't know anything. Our nation would be far better off today without all of our so-called medical experts who back in 1972 made the decision to halt smallpox vaccinnation. At that time it looked like a setup to me. I tried everything to get my newborn infant son vaccinnated...absolutely no way. Doctors, clinics, hospitals ALL gave you the "brush off". It was a total kneejerk reaction...the "stock" response was always the same. "The WHO says we don't to vaccinnate anymore...smallpox is dead...yak yak yak." Some of those folks aren't looking too smart right now. I'd sure like to know how many muslims on the staff at WHO??

14 posted on 10/17/2001 9:10:49 PM PDT by kimosabe31
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To: NotJustAnotherPrettyFace
(LINK: http://jama.ama-assn.org/issues/v281n22/ffull/jst90000.html) "The immune status of those who were vaccinated more than 27 years ago is not clear. The duration of immunity, based on the experience of naturally exposed susceptible persons, has never been satisfactorily measured. Neutralizing antibodies are reported to reflect levels of protection, although this has not been validated in the field. These antibodies have been shown to decline substantially..." during a 5- to 10-year period.24 Thus, even those who received the recommended single-dose vaccination as children do not have lifelong immunity.
15 posted on 10/17/2001 9:18:07 PM PDT by Eowyn-of-Rohan
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To: JohnHuang2
"I can report to you that it looks very promising that we will have the 300 million doses by sometime next year,"

Well, how thoughtful of him! Wonder if the terrorists will wait until sometime next year to unleash this on us, so we can all get the vaccine first.

Since the threat of bio attacks, specifically anthrax and smallpox, have been talked about, studied and researched for YEARS, why the hell hasn't this already been done?

The vaccine itself carries serious health risks: It produced adverse reactions in roughly 1 in 13,000 vaccinated people, ranging from severe rashes to brain inflammation, which killed about one person in one million. Adverse reactions in 1 out of 13,000 people and death of 1 in a million - so they put us all at risk for 1 person in 13,000 or a million?

The intelligence level on the Hill is on par with a Pet Rock! But then, they really don't give a damn about protecting American citizens. They have THEIR vaccines and bunkers to protect them from any bio attack and we will be left to deal with it the best way we can.

If this country suffers a smallpox attack that kills millions, I will hold our government directly responsible. They will all deserve being put on trial and executed for the MURDER of American citizens because they were either too stupid or unwilling to prevent it.

16 posted on 10/17/2001 9:41:51 PM PDT by TexanaRED
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To: Gilbo_3
There is some information on the utility of vaccinations in the article linked below. (It's The Demon in the Freezer by Richard Preston, author of The Hot Zone, a best-seller about the Ebola virus. It appeared in the New Yorker in July 1999.) The short answer is that immunity conferred by smallpox vaccination lasts about ten years. There are different strains of smallpox. The worst is variola major, which kills about one-third of the people who get it.

Click here for the definitive article about smallpox biowarfare..

17 posted on 10/17/2001 10:31:23 PM PDT by TheMole
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To: TexanaRED
in most peoples opinion, our government better find a way to produce it like NOW! what are they thinking, they don't even attribute the anthrax to the terrorists yet~
18 posted on 10/17/2001 10:36:42 PM PDT by blondee123
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To: TexanaRED
It's the same government that has allowed our immigration and our borders to become a national disgrace, and now a national security nightmare.

Our immigration policies and our borders are a complete and total "free for all".

19 posted on 10/17/2001 10:41:12 PM PDT by Joe Hadenuf
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To: JohnHuang2
I do not believe in vaccinations, came from the polio era. I won't take the anthrax vaccine, but I tellya, my family and I will do this one in a flash! But why next year?!? We need it like yesterday, especially as highly contagious as it is!
20 posted on 10/17/2001 10:47:34 PM PDT by JustPiper
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