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To: Opinionated Blowhard
McCaskill calls for probe into smallpox-vaccine boondoggle

The boondoggle consists largely in thinking that traditional smallpox vaccine will help in any way against the Soviet Union's weaponized form which was being produced by the kiloton as recently as the 1990s. The idea that they destroyed these stocks is ludicrous.
4 posted on 11/25/2011 8:33:30 PM PST by aruanan
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To: aruanan
The argument that the FDA can't approve it is thinking small. It obviously is a special case, one would hope a unique one. Infecting humans with smallpox NOW for testing is immoral. Not having enough of it should smallpox. reappear is immoral. If the FDA lacks authority to deal with this unique case we should pass an extremely narrowly worded law allowing its use in humans, without prior human testing, only when smallpox is confirmed. I wouldn't be at all surprised the claims of graft here are true, but in this case I'll accept the ends justifying the graft if the drug actually works in animal models.

Having a treatment for it around with uncertain efficacy still has strategic value. Of the subset of lunatics who might still have some, and are crazy enough to deploy it, how many would be willing to risk their attack fizzling? It shrinks an already small pool. Any case of smallpox now should be considered an act of war until proven otherwise. The only other possibilities would be a lab accident at the CDC or the one Russian repository.

Lest we automatically rule out the lab accidents we should remember the final two cases of smallpox resulted from a lab accident in Birmingham, UK. which was never fully explained. A photographer, a floor above in the building, who was allegedly never physically in the lab, contracted smallpox, presumably through air vents. She died. Her mother caught a mild case from her and survived. The head of the lab committed suicide. There'd been a larger outbreak from a London lab a few years earlier. The media, whenever discussing smallpox, rarely mention this. They prefer to focus on the "natural" final third world case, who survived, rather than the unnatural final first world cases.

BTW, smallpox is now longer the only disease man has eradicated. Victory was declared over rinderpest a few months ago, although it also survives in labs. Cattle world wide rejoice! Rinderpest, to them, was like smallpox on steroids to us - 90% mortality. Measles in humans is thought to have evolved from rinderpest

10 posted on 11/25/2011 10:02:01 PM PST by JohnBovenmyer (Obama been Liberal. Hope Change!)
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