Posted on 08/09/2002 10:21:22 AM PDT by tellw
...... As for me, I have told my doctor that I will be first in line as soon as the CDC gets off their butts and allows Americans the protect they need.
If you have been vaccinated that many times, you probably have lifetime immunity. Freeper bonesmccoy posted several weeks ago about a study of antibody levels in military personnel ten years after receiving a second vaccination, and apparently they had high levels. You probably ought to let someone under 30 get his or her first vaccination before you get revaccinated.
. He's not suggesting you have to get it. He's just saying that if you want it you should be able to get it. Frankly I would rather get it now than in a panic when everyone would definitely have to get it and the health system would be most strained.
WASHINGTON — Should Americans be allowed to make an informed choice to receive the smallpox vaccine? I believe they should and that individual choice should become the central component of a new national policy aimed at protecting us from the possible use of smallpox as a weapon of mass destruction by terrorists.
I've often wondered why the vaccine seemed less potent over the years. My grandmother had a scar the size of a silver dollar, ca. 1890; my mother had a scar the size of a quarter, ca. 1913; I have a scar the size of a dime, ca. 1940; and my oldest daughter, ca. 1960; had a dreadful reaction to the vaccine, but bears no scar. My younger children did not react at all.
The daughter who suffered the dreadful reaction also had such a bad case of chickenpox that her pediatrician sais she'd seen noting like it since treating smallpox in India (1967). The other children in the family were barely sick with the chickenpox.
The unfortunate truth, however, is that this "lifetime immunity" has probably worn off because they stopped giving the shots.
looks good on paper - but I doubt things wil run that smoothly with a mass vaccination program...
but I do agree with you that you should have the right to get the vaccination if you so desire...
the govt. should not interfere with your decision...
where did you get your information...
you seem to imply that there is no chance that there is a virulent enough strain of small pox that our vaccines can't handle...
It isn't that the vaccine became less potent, rather they learned how to manufacture it with less impurities (almost as many adverse reactions were the impurities as to the actual vaccine), and how to successfully innoculate people while using less vaccine per person.
Chickenpox is not related to the rhinoviruses of which smallpox, its cousin called vaccinia which is used as a vaccine against smallpox, and cowpox are members. Vaccinia and cowpox are not the same. It is possible your daughter with the bad reaction is one of those more susceptible to skin diseases in general. Ask her to have a doctor check her for that - she might be especially vulnerable to eczema.
Those of us who were vaccinated against smallpox more than twenty years ago can still catch the naturally occuring strain, but it is most unlikely that it would be fatal to us. Even the somewhat souped up Soviet military grade smallpox used in the Aralsk incident didn't kill anyone whose medical records showed previous vaccination. I use the latter term because there were questions about how effective Soviet routine vaccination procedures were. Once the outbreak had occurred they made damn sure that everyone in the area was thoroughly vaccinated.
What scares me are the things reported in Jon Cohen's Designer Bugs article in the July Atlantic Monthly at:
http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/2002/07/cohen-j.htm
Until then, though, smallpox powder is the nightmare scenario. We really should permit mass voluntary vaccinations, but we should be careful about that due to the threats to the immune-impaired and complication-susceptible.
What about 40 years ago, 60 years ago, and 80 years ago?
...we should be careful about that due to the threats to the immune-impaired and complication-susceptible.To give Clinton credit (ooooohhh that's really hard), I think he halted the program that would have destroyed our last supply of the virus at the very last minute. Maybe that's the only wise thing he did during his presidency.
...we should be careful about that due to the threats to the immune-impaired and complication-susceptible.
The first time I ever heard of someone NOT receiving the smallpox vaccine was in about 1962. A friend's daughter was not vaccinated because of her allergies, (eggs, which is part of the serum where the vaccine is grown).
I was appalled, certain that her baby would die a horrifying death -- or be disfigured for the rest of her life. My friend laughed and said that NONE of her children would be vaccinated because of the older daughter's allergies (and the risk of transmitting the disease to the daughter.) I was certain that this was a big mistake -- but later on, the doctors stopped giving the vaccine to everyone and even contemplated destroying all of our supplies of the virus that they use to grow it. The theory being that no one could get the disease because it had been eradicated; and we were all immune anyway.
Now we find out that the vaccine is dangerous, we don't have lifetime immunity, and that evil people have stocks of the virus that they are waiting to unleash on us.
To give Clinton credit (ooooohhh that's really hard), I think he halted the program that would have destroyed our last supply of the virus at the very last minute. Maybe that's the only wise thing he did during his presidency.
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