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Let's suppose that the last red alert had to do with smallpox...........WHEN would the first cases start cropping up?

There's been TOO much talk about smallpox. Seems to me it's a 'prep' for when the thing breaks out.

There's been TOO much talk about smallpox. Seems to me it's a 'prep' for when the thing breaks out.

Unfortunately, I agree. There is almost no reason for the government to be doing the things it is doing regarding smallpox vaccinations if they didn't think it was an immediate threat.

They wouldn't think it was an immediate threat unless they believed that either al-Qaida had the weapon or Iraq intended to use it now.

The one possibility that could explain their actions, though, without there being an immediate threat, is the determination that we have to take out Saddam Hussein and that, at that point in time, he might use smallpox as a weapon. In that case, they're simply trying to be prepared well in advance.

I hope that's it instead of some information that someone infected with smallpox is attempting to seek entry into the country today.

5 to 15 day incubation period for the pox was normal in the '60's when smallpox was still an "active" disease. The very communicable stage starts just before the first sympotoms manifest as the infected person begins to cough and blister, soon the illness makes the patient feel and look terrible making others want to avoid the very sick person. Caugh launched viruses can reamin airborne for at least half an hour so passersby can be infected long after the carrier has left an area. Also, vaccinated people can be carriers, aka "vectors". Washing hands often, gloves, face masks, and eye protection are classic and worthwhile methods of dealing with epidemincs.

The SOBs wanting a return of a 19th Century pandemic believe that their own 3rd World culture will hardly know the difference from just another plague. They do not understand. Smallpox kills one in three.

Last week I read that TB in Russia may be approaching one in six. They have created totally drug resistant strains through incompetent public health practices, especially within their prison system. That disease will be to our hometowns soon.

We are leaving "the good old days".