Posted on 11/03/2001 4:09:05 AM PST by tallhappy
November 3, 2001
THE VACCINE
ST. LOUIS, Nov. 2 — Six student volunteers became the first people to receive smallpox vaccine here today as part of a study to determine whether existing stockpiles of the vaccine can be stretched to protect more Americans from bioterrorism.
"I thought this is an amazing opportunity," said Alison Hayes, a law student at Saint Louis University. "I can be vaccinated for my own protection and have the chance to help others should there be a smallpox outbreak."
Ms. Hayes, 26, of University City, a St. Louis suburb, is part of a study at the Center for Vaccine Development at Saint Louis University School of Medicine. In two to three months, 171 people, ages 18 to 32, will receive varying strengths of the vaccine.
Smallpox, a highly contagious viral disease, was eliminated in 1980, but some terrorism experts fear that terrorists may have stockpiles.
In the United States, routine vaccination against smallpox ended in the 1970's. The government is making plans to produce enough new vaccine to immunize all Americans.
Meanwhile, the government wants to see if the existing 15 million doses of the vaccine could be diluted to deal with an outbreak. The National Institutes of Health is financing the study here and at three other locations.
Dr. Sharon E. Frey, an associate professor and the lead investigator in the Saint Louis University study, will inject volunteers with vaccine at full, one-fifth or one-tenth strength.
A similar study of 60 volunteers last year showed that 95 percent of those given full-strength vaccine were effectively immunized, compared with 70 percent of those given the one-fifth dilution. "The results with the one-to-ten solution were disappointing," Dr. Frey said.
I hope we can come from behind on this one. The trouble is that liberal health care policies left a window of opportunity where, even if we can come up with enough vaccine, the enemy will have a "use it or loose it" decision. As you can tell, I a really mad about this!
There is no need to engineer a different batch since the vaccine has not been used in decades and the disease as-is is still so nasty.
Unlikely- you don't create a new form without also creating a cure for it- because in the case of smallpox, it WILL come back to your own nation, and you want to make sure that doesn't happen. Such engineering, if feasible, would take years to both develop the disease varient and the vaccine to use against it.
There is no need to engineer a different batch since the vaccine has not been used in decades and the disease as-is is still so nasty.
The Soviets had a massive program to develop smallpox as a strategic weapon deliverable by ICBMs and intercontinental bombers. They used an extremely virulent strain of the virus isolated in India in 1967. According to Ken Alibek, the defector who ran the Soviet biological weapons program, they produced over 20 tons of this virus between 1980 and 1991. The program was abandoned just as the Soviets were trying to develop genetically engineered versions that would be even more lethal.
With so much virus produced, it would be naiive to assume that there were no scientists or lab technicians who might have stolen some samples. Also, it is possible that there are misplaced or unlabelled vials of smallpox located in research laboratories.
Actually, there is a need for a new vaccine. Although the current vaccine is effective, it has a lot of side-effects. This is the reason that WHO recommended that nations stop the routine vaccination of their populations after the disease was declared erradicated. By eliminating these vaccinations, we now have a large population that has no resistance at all to the disease, especially people under 30. This makes smallpox a potential biological weapon.
The vaccina virus vaccine is 205 years old. There have been lots of advances in immunolgy in that time. Why do we expose people to the live virus, for the first exposure to the vaccine? Why not a killed vaccine or a synthetic vaccine? If a vaccine could be produced that is much safer, we could routinely vaccinate everyone in childhood. If our population were not vulnerable no one would have the incentive to smallpox against us.
The current problem with the potential use of smallpox as a biological weapon should serve as a warning for the future. The WHO wants to eradicate other diseases such as polio. It would be a great thing if polio were eradicated, but I would not want to eliminate the routine vaccination of children.
Very doubtful.
And any nation that could alter it in such a manner would most likely not be the one involved here, ie Iraq and Al Qaeda.
This is not an accurate thing to say. Side effects are less than are caused by most prescribed drugs.
It MAY be that those of us who had the full series of immunizations as kids may have some partial immunity. This could mean we would get less sick, or might be more resistant to even catching it at all. This could become important if smallpox does appear before enough doses of vaccine are available for the entire US public. I for one would be willing to forgo a vaccine for my unimmunized children.
Most prescribed drugs are taken by a small subset of the population who are already ill, whereas vaccinations are usually taken by the whole population usually when well. Assuming a death rate of 1:1,000,000 (the historical rate for the existing vaccine) vaccinating everyone in the wolrd would kill 6,000 people (more than died in the World Trade Center). There are also inflamations of the brain that can cause permanent brain damage. If there were a deliberate release of smallpox, the risks of the current vaccine would be justified. Also, the smallpox vaccine does not give permanent immunity to the disease, making additional vaccinations neccessary in order to maintain adequate antibody levels. I have not seen statistics on complications from initial vaccinations versus boosters.
The statistics about complications are old because no country has routinely vaccinated against smallpox in over twenty years. The only population in this country that gets vaccinated today is the military, and they tend to have a fairly young and healthy population to start with. The general population in this country includes a considerable number of people with compromisede immune systems who in the past would not even still be living but today are able to. These include AIDS patients, cancer chemotherapy patients, organ transplant recipients, etc.
The ones caught in the middle I guess are the ones born 1972 and after, people say 18 to 19 or so.
Small Pox bump.
By the way, I read that the Chinese were immunizing their army at their west border for small pox in preperation for a potential bio-attack.
Iraq and Al Qaeda do not, as far as we know, possess the virus. They would have to obtain it from one of the two countries either by purchase, stealing or gift.
Both Regan and Bush could have moved to reverse the stupidity of the Carter administration at the CDC. But they didn't. They did no further harm, either, as far as I an tell. However, Clinton came in and "compounded the felony."
Here is a link CDC to an article I wrote in 1985 (During Reagan). I revised it in 1993, during Clinton, then touched it up and posted it after 9/11. With the help of the internet, at least people can see it. (I was paid a couple of kill fees by national publications in my attempt to get it out before.)
The point is that liberal reforms, promoted by liberal agendas under Democratic administrations left our defenses down on this issue. And, yes, you are correct, Republicans did not do a darn thing to fix it! But when I think of all the agendas that are promoted "for the children," this negligence makes all the liberal pleas ring pretty hollow.
Thanks as always for your reply.
Regarding smallpox here is a link to the excellent biowarfare site at John Hopkins. Biodefense If you go there, click on the information on Dark Winter, especially the Lessons Learned section.
Last summer they ran a high level drill based on the surfacing of 20 cases of smallpox in Oklahoma at the beginning of "December." Using a script and computer modeling -- Sam Nunn was acting as president -- the team did the best they could with the 12.5 million doses of vaccine available. The scenario ended at the beginning of "February" with one million dead, 3 million active cases, and a 4-6 week delivery time on more vaccine.
The ONLY defense against this is to have had everyone vaccinated BEFORE the threat. But if you do that, the threat will never materialize and the bureaucrats will not be able to justify the expense. This is what happened to Sencer with the Swine flu innoculation; Carter set the pattern when he fired him.
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