Thinking Ahead: Should Smallpox Become Reality, What Do We Do?

[ChemistCat]

There is a sizeable, cautious, but not hysterical contingent on FR that believes we may have been exposed to smallpox at some time in the last week. It's not something we know is happening. It's something we think is a reasonable scenario in light of other events. I'm starting this thread as a place to discuss what preparations our nation and communities do NOT seem to be making, and what our personal plans of action are if this CONTAGIOUS bioattack vector eclipses anthrax.

[SarahW]

And if there isn't enough vaccine, I propose Martha Stewart be placed in charge of homeland defense; She could show us how she gathers vaccinia from her infected dairy cattle and performs vaccinations with small decorative skewers.

Welcome to Martha Stewart (if you want to keep) Living.

[FITZ]

IF there is ever even ONE case of smallpox anywhere on the planet, the World Health Organization will consider it an international health emergency.

I don't put my faith much in government or organizations like WHO because I don't like the approach they're taking so far on this. I don't believe them when they say they can make enough vaccine by the summer (because there isn't anything special they have to do to that virus they make it from), I think it's stupid to wait for outbreaks and then believe the doctors and nurses (entire hospital) who've been exposed will not take the disease home to their own kids and spread it further through the population. It's just like after 1993 when the WTC was hit the first time, there was no reason for them to ignore everything and allow it to be hit again.

[xm177e2]

Smallpox kills healthy people, the flu almost solely kills the weakest members of society. If you survive the flu, everything goes back to normal. If you survive smallpox, you can be left with hideous scarring.

[ChemistCat]

This is an absolutely breathtakingly wonderful book: From Sea to Shining Sea by James Alexander Thom. It's about the Clark family of Virginia, whose members "fought for our independence, and explored, conquered, and settled the continent from sea to shining sea." It's historical fiction of the best kind: carefully researched and vividly real. The passage I'm about to quote, "for education and discussion purposes only," concerns possible primary smallpox vaccination that may have been done in Valley Forge. I remember seeing a discussion about whether or not this actually took place, but alas, it is not in this book and I don't remember where else it could have been. Thom was a Marine, by the way, before he wrote historical novels.

VALLEY FORGE, PENNSYLVANIA
February, 1778

"Why are you shakin', soldier? Cold or afraid?"
"Cold, sir."
"Not afraid, eh? That's good," Jonathan Clark said.
The soldier didn't answer. He didn't need to. The look in his eyes was pure terror. He looked as if he might faint. So did half the other men in this company.
Oh, they were cold, too. They were standing in ranks in an inch of snow, and a third of them were barefooted. Some had no coats, others no hats.
But they had been cold all winter. Now they were afraid. So it was time for Jonathan's lecture. He had given it to about half the companies so far.
"Now, hear me," he began. "I know how ye feel. You'd be shaking in your boots, if y' had any boots to shake in."
That brought a chuckle from some of them, and it brought their attention a little way around toward him. They looked at this tall, broad-shouldered young officer with the dark but cheerful eyes, the pock-marked but handsome face, and his warm voice and good humor were somehow reassuring, as they faced this unthinkably dreadful thing that was about to be done to them. He had obviously had the dread pocks, but was a hale man withal. Now he went on.
"I'm Jonathan Clark, Major, 8th Virginia, and I give ye my word: You'd have more cause for fear if we were not doing this.
"As you've heard, there's small pocks in camp. We've done all we can to keep it isolated, but this malady has a way of getting about, wherever there are many souls crowded together.
"You've probably heard it said already--I'm sure y'have, as rumor gets around an army camp about five times as swift as orders do." Again, an appreciative chuckle. "You've likely heard already that what we're doing in this hospital," --he pointed toward the hovel in front of them which went by the name of hospital--"is that we're deliberately infecting men with the pocks.
"Well, if that was all of the truth, I'd not blame ye for shakin' in those boots y' don't have. But let me tell you what a miracle it is that the good Doctor O'Fallon is doing in there." They were listening well to him, doing their best to believe, though it was against their instincts to believe such a thing.
"I have already had the pocks, as you can see. I came down with it in an epidemic after the seige o' Charles Town. Because I've had it, I have no fear of it anymore. I can go amid an epidemic of it without fear. Know why? Because a man can get the pocks but once--I mean, this picks. The other kind we don't much need to worry about here, as there's not been a harlot in sight all winter." They laughed now. "It might be," he said, "that the British in Philadelphia are getting all that. See howlucky we are?" They were having a good time now, laughing at these thoughts.
"I can work with the good doctor," Jonathan said. "I can touch infected men and have no fear. D'ye wonder why it is that a man has the small pocks but once?" He had them curious now. Their fear was in suspension. He knew that fear grows in unknowing, and he was giving them knowledge. "Blood," he went on, "has a property. I'm no doctor, so I can't put it in a doctor's language, but blood has a property that fights disease. I reckon it's like what happens when the Redcoats come to Lexington or such a place: all the patriots run to Lexington to drive 'em back. Well, that property in your blood is like a patriotism in your body: it's to stop the invasion of a foreign evil, if y' follow me." Some were nodding, others listening with mouths hanging open.
"What we're doing is like that. Well, we invade your arm with a speck o' pus from a poxed man. That pus is the foreign evil like the Redcoats I spoke of. Just a light scratch on your skin and a spot o' pus put on it. What happens then is that the patriotic property of your blood rushes to that place, and it stops the invasion right there. And in so doing, your blood learns how to fight that particular evil. So, Instead of bein' generally invaded, like I was, you'll have but th' one spot of disease, one scar, there on your arm. And ever after, you'll be able to wak through an epidemic of the pocks without any fear of it. The rest of your natural life! Think what a gift o'God that is!"
They were seeming to believe him; their faces were beginning to show some hope where they had only shown fear. He concluded:
"General Washington, ye know it, is a man cares about his people. He doesn't want an epidemic here at Valley Forge. And I'll tell it true, he's the first general ever knew enough to do this for his army.
"Now I've seen you walk into the face of bayonets and grapeshot when he needed y' to do it. So I reckon ye won't be afraid to walk in there and face a doctor who's like to save your life. Now s'pose I tell one more truth: that no man or woman ever died--nay, nor even sickened--from this little pinprick you're about to take. It's true! My word on it. And General Washington's. And if that isn't enough, maybe y'll take the word o'God on it...."
(snip)
"Ready, Major Clark?"
"Ready, Dr. O'Fallon. Another set o' men getting their souls fortified right now." They could hear Reverend Davy Jones's voice droning in prayer outside.
"I think it's your talk fortifies 'em most," the physician said. "I'm not so certain mere prayers alone would prepare 'em."
"Mere prayers!" Jonathan mocked him. "In faith, Bones, one might guess you're an Unbeliever!" He rolled back his sleeves, picked up a lance and a cup, and pulled back a linen curtain that hung from poles in a corner of the hut. "Now Corporal," he said to a young man lying inside on a cot, "are y' ready to give for this worthy cause?" He drew down a sheet to expose the man's chest and shoulders, which were covered with white-topped pustules of the readiest kind. The donor looked askance through his swollen eyelids at the lance in Jonathan's hand, coughed violently, then sighed, and turned his face toward the wall.
"Aye," he said in a weak voice, "help yourself, Doctor."
Well, well, Jonathan thought, stooping close over the young soldier to cut the head off a pustule and press its matter out with the edge of the cup, wouldn't Ma be tickled to know she's now got a "doctor" amongst her sons?

[mykdsmom]

I for one am grateful that you posted the pictures.

I was horrified at how terrible it looked but like most, I have never seen pictures of smallpox and don't have a clue what to expect.

MKM

[ChemistCat]

There is a sizeable, cautious, but not hysterical contingent on FR that believes we may have been exposed to smallpox at some time in the last week.
75 posts and no one has addressed this statement. This would be a very significant thing if so, to understate it immensely.
Who thinks this? When, where how? etc.......

I'm corresponding with many such FReepers that I met on prior smallpox/Halloween candy threads. I don't believe in calling people out in public; let them identify themselves if they will. I would say however that most of the people posting also believe it's a strong possibility. Like Y2K, it's basically a harmless thing to prepare for, but the consequences of not being prepared for smallpox are devastatingly worse. I remember watching television on New Year's, 1999, and ending the night absolutely ecstatic that all went well. What a spectacular sight the firework display on the Eiffel Tower was! I was able to laugh when I actually did get a bill citing my credit card useage in January 1900--because it all turned out to be no big deal. Frankly, I think a lot of effort went INTO it being no big deal.
There will be no fireworks to tell us when we can quit worrying about terrorism, however.

[harrier13]

Fact:We will die at some future time.

Fact:Your chances of hitting the lottery are far more favorible than contracting smallpox and maybe you shouldn't drive a car.

Fact:This is nothing more than paranoid hysteria.

[Dan Day]

I don't know that they have smallpox. I do know that if they DO have it THEY HAVE NO REASON NOT TO USE IT, and we also know we let a lot of people in here who shouldn't be.

There's at least one good reason for them not to use it...

A highly contagious bioweapon would spread throughout the entire world quickly, given how much mobility there is in the modern world (people on airliners, etc.)

...including to the terrorists' homelands.

And even if they're too callous or stupid to care about that part, the fact would remain that *every* country which suffered a large death toll would undergo the kind of epiphany that the US did on 9/11 -- and come to the inescapable conclusion that terrorists are too recklessly dangerous to allow to exist.

Contagious bioweapons are like a nuclear weapon that, when you trigger it, goes off all over the world, in uncontrollable random locations.

Anyone with half a brain (and for all their faults, al Qaeda isn't *that* stupid) would realize that contagious bioweapons would be a more certain death for the user than for the intended target.

Pissing off *everyone* is counterproductive to *any* cause.

[TN4Liberty]

My plan, should I contract smallpox, is to move to the Middle East. Maybe become an Islamic mercenary. I could be the cook... fix the meals for the mujahadin. And cough a lot.

[meridia]

Hi, munk. The most fascinating thing I've heard from the "experts" was one day when a woman doctor thoroughly explained that THEY actually have NO idea if people who were vaccinated in childhood REMAIN SAFE.

There are figures in another messagethread about an outbreak of smallpox, in the early 1900s - I think in Birmingham, and it was found that OLD persons who had been vaccinated in infancy were IMMUNE to smallpox, even at their advanced age.

This doctor made it clear that the experts have NO idea if, indeed, MANY people in the population are actually SAFE, because they have been innoculated.

[Paleo Conservative]

Like Y2K, it's basically a harmless thing to prepare for, but the consequences of not being prepared for smallpox are devastatingly worse.

Not only that but the cost of manufacturing enough vaccine for the whole population is not very high, only about $500 million for 300 million doses. When compared to other expenditures for national defence that is very little. The Pentagon is considering buying an additional 40 stripped down tactical B-2 bombers for $700 million each.

[meridia]

When that occured they innoculated MILLIONS of people. They had a HUGE supply of vaccine. Not so, now.

[harrier13]

Your point is? My point was that 20,000 died of the flu in this country last year and nobody died of smallpox.Do you think people are going to die of smallpox this upcoming year? Who knows?

What I do know is that 20,000 people will die of the flu this upcoming year and a whole lot of people will die or be disfigured as a result of auto accidents.

I don't waste time being afraid of the bogey man.

[ChemistCat]

Anyone with half a brain (and for all their faults, al Qaeda isn't *that* stupid) would realize that contagious bioweapons would be a more certain death for the user than for the intended target.

I hope you're right. But it's not hard to envision a severely underpaid Russian lab tech "with half a brain" selling a small amount of virus to some agent of the Taliban. It's not hard to envision someone over there so demented that he's willing to kill a third of the whole world if it would bring us to our knees. They hate us that much.Remember,they truly believe that their allah (I refuse to capitalize the god they believe in--it's NOT the Allah the Turks I knew and loved worshipped)--that their allah would save them, just as they believe they'll get dozens of pliant virgins from that same allah for committing mass murder. I don't credit these people with sanity. I don't believe all of them have half a brain--or they would have carried out their 9/11 attacks on Clinton's watch and then we'd have surrendered.

[harrier13]

You'll be "pimpled" for her pleasure.

[TLBSHOW]

It will be blackpox. That is what I believe, after many nights here at FR.

[Lady GOP]

Thnx for the information. Bookmark. Hoping that the vaccination will reach us before this does. There are so many bad things, worse than anthrax that we will have to deal with.

[ChemistCat]

Why are you posting here then?

I don't think the level of emotion on this thread is any higher than a bunch of people sitting around talking about winter driving. Steer into the skid? Pump the brakes, or apply steady pressure? If you end up stuck, have some kitty litter in the trunk and a warm blanket, some food, and some water. Don't go out unless you have to until the roads are clear. Etc. Etc.

This is all we're doing. Go bleat hysteria, hysteria somewhere else. I often agree with you but you're being deliberately obtuse here.

[alloysteel]

A widespread die-back of the US population is not an impossible scenario. Kind of like Stephen King's novel, "The Stand". Naked evil comes out to walk the world, in the diminished remaining population, as the pitiful remnants try to piece together a civilization.

[meridia]

Ya know what I do not understand?

Where I am genuinely confused? Well...

If cowpox vaccinations can successfully prevent smallpox from occuring in humans.... WHY is there any shortage of vaccine? Can't it be made like in weeks from cowpox strains? The cowpox strains were how people protected themselves from smallpox in times long ago.