60 Minutes: Iraq Has Smallpox

Newsmax ^ | 10/8/01

[truthandlife]

60 Minutes reported Sunday night that Iraq has a strain of smallpox.

Smallpox is a deadly and highly contagious virus.

Only two countries were believed to have strains of the virus, the U.S. and Russia.

60 Minutes' Mike Wallace reported this evening that Saddam Hussein acquired some of the smallpox virus from a laboratory in Russia.

Russian scientists have also been helping countries like Iraq and Iran developed biological weapons.

[truthandlife]

Smallpox

Fact Sheet Info   ·   Anthrax   ·   Botulinum Toxin   ·   Plague   ·   Smallpox   ·   Tularemia

Smallpox

Smallpox, because of its high case-fatality rates and transmissibility, now represents one of the most serious bioterrorist threats to the civilian population. Over the centuries, naturally occurring smallpox, with its case-fatality rate of 30 percent or more and its ability to spread in any climate and season, has been universally feared as the most devastating of all the infectious diseases.

Smallpox was once worldwide in scope; before vaccination was practiced almost everyone eventually contracted the disease. In 1980, the World Health Assembly announced that smallpox had been eradicated and recommended that all countries cease vaccination. That same year, the Soviet government embarked on an ambitious program to grow smallpox in large quantities and adapt it for use in bombs and intercontinental ballistic missiles. That initiative succeeded.

Russia still possesses an industrial facility that is capable of producing tons of smallpox virus annually and also maintains a research program that is thought to be seeking to produce more virulent and contagious strains.

An aerosol release of smallpox virus would disseminate readily given its considerable stability in aerosol form and epidemiological evidence suggesting the infectious dose is very small. Even as few as 50-100 cases would likely generate widespread concern or panic and a need to invoke large-scale, perhaps national emergency control measures.

Several factors fuel the concern: the disease has historically been feared as one of the most serious of all pestilential diseases; it is physically disfiguring; it bears a 30 percent case-fatality rate; there is no treatment; it is communicable from person to person; and no one in the U.S. has been vaccinated during the past 25 years. Vaccination ceased in this country in 1972, and vaccination immunity acquired before that time has undoubtedly waned.

Smallpox spreads directly from person to person, primarily by droplet nuclei expelled from the oropharynx of the infected person or by aerosol. Natural infection occurs following implantation of the virus on the oropharyngeal or respiratory mucosa.

Contaminated clothing or bed linen could also spread the virus. Special precautions need to be taken to insure that all bedding and clothing of patients are autoclaved. Disinfectants such as hypochlorite and quaternary ammonia should be used for washing contaminated surfaces.

A smallpox outbreak poses difficult problems because of the ability of the virus to continue to spread throughout the population unless checked by vaccination and/or isolation of patients and their close contacts.

Between the time of an aerosol release of smallpox and diagnosis of the first cases, an interval of as much as two weeks is apt to occur. This is because there is an average incubation period of 12 to 14 days.

After the incubation period, the patient experiences high fever, malaise, and prostration with headache and backache. Severe abdominal pain and delirium are sometimes present. A mascopapular rash then appears, first on the mucosa of the mouth and pharynx, face and forearms, spreading to the trunk and legs. Within one or two days, the rash becomes vesicular and later pustular. The pustules are characteristically round, tense and deeply embedded in the dermis; crusts begin to form about the eighth or ninth day. When the scabs separate, pigment-free skin remains, and eventually pitted scars form.

Approximately 140,000 vials of vaccine are in storage at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, each with doses for 50-60 people, and an additional 50-100 million doses are estimated to exist worldwide. This stock cannot be immediately replenished, since all vaccine production facilities were dismantled after 1980, and renewed vaccine production is estimated to require at least 24-36 months.

In 2000, CDC awarded a contract to Oravax of Cambridge, Massachusetts to produce smallpox vaccine. Initially producing 40 million doses, Oravax anticipates delivery of the first full scale production lots in 2004.

Treatment of smallpox is limited to supportive therapy and antibiotics as required for treating secondary bacterial infections. There are no proven antiviral agents effective in treating smallpox.

Recommendations of the Working Group include testing and ultimate consideration for FDA approval of a vaccinia strain grown in tissue culture rather than on calves, finding a rapid diagnostic test for smallpox virus in the asymptomatic early stages, and developing a more attenuated strain of vaccine.

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Copyright © 2000 The Johns Hopkins University on behalf of its Center for Civilian Biodefense Studies. All rights reserved.

[GreenGrouper]

Now I am starting to understand how the 'plagues' that are prophesized in the bible will come to be - biological warfare. I know that many people here will say that the apocolypse should have been here a thousand times if you listen to religious finatics, but never before have we faced a situation like this.

[hflynn]

It is very possible Iraq has Smallpox. It is also just as possible they don't and that this is 60 Minutes being enlisted to begin building the case to attack Iraq in one of the next stages of this war. In either case, lets roll.

[OWK]

All this talk about Anthrax is NOTHING... I repeat NOTHING compared to the potential human catastrophe represented by smallpox in a world immunologically unprepared for its reintroduction. Countless millions would die.

If the Iraqi regime is truly developing smallpox into a weapon of war, then it must... MUST be destroyed proactively and overwhelmingly. (preferably by thermonuclear sterilization)

[Snowy]

You can't get a Smallpox vaccine today, can you? I would think that the small supplies would be in the hands of the government to be deployed in key areas in case of an outbreak.

[francisandbeans]

from what I hear...we have about 7 million available vaccinations...we would need roughly about 60 million to make sure everyone is covered.

[self_evident]

So now 60 minutes is the paragon of truth? This is the THIRD time this article has been posted (although you never post it).

[lavaroise]

Time to contact the health center and vaccinate your kids.

[self_evident]

There are about 40 million doses of vaccine stockpiled in the U.S. Quit freeking out.

[Rippin]

You can't get a Smallpox vaccine today, can you? I would think that the small supplies would be in the hands of the government to be deployed in key areas in case of an outbreak.

No, not without some good connections. I had an unusually innovative primary care physician as a youth. I had deveastating canker sours (yes I know the diff b/w canker and cold sores) and I was given a number of smallpox vaccinations in my teens which clear up canker sourse in a day for months, boom, no ifs ands or buts. Wipes them out.

Having my wisdom teeth out in my forties resulted in a horrible case of canker sores. I desperately tried to get smallpox vaccinations but to no avail.

Rippin

[Lizzy W]

For God's sake will someone please nuke this F-er already?

[Illbay]

Now wait. You Libertines believe we should all be able to do whatever we want to do as long as we "don't harm others."

When we tell you that for example certain preemptive measures such as outlawing drugs, or drunk-driving laws ought to be put in place, you say "you can't move against someone BEFORE he does something to harm you."

Well, doesn't that apply in this case? Doesn't Saddam have the right to have the "Smallpox weapon"? And Liberine-speak would say that you can't do anything against him UNTIL he does something to harm someone else!

Seems like your Libertine cant only applies when convenient.

[OWK]

Now wait. You Libertines believe we should all be able to do whatever we want to do as long as we "don't harm others."

If you don't recognize the development of smallpox into a weapon of war, by a rogue state intent on our destruction as demonstrated intent to "harm others", you're an even bigger idiot than I thought you were.

[Don Myers]

bttt

[MissAmericanPie]

Here are a couple of more prophecies that are not hard to figgure out. "their eyes will consume away in their holes, their tongues will consume away in their mouths, and their flesh shall consume away on their bones, as they stand on their feet". That one is sure not hard to figgure out, and also the one about the horses and their riders going mad, soldiers going mad and turning their swords on each other. That could be chemical, or the H.A.A.R.P. weapon is rumoured to make man and animals go crazy.

[Don Myers]

"many people here will say that the apocolypse should have been here a thousand times"

Well, I do believe it might well be here now. And the Islamics are not adverse to using bio/chem warefare.

[Don Myers]

"preferably by thermonuclear sterilization"

I am not disagreeing, however, such talk bothers the doves. Once we use nukes, the other side will, if they had not already done so. This thing seems to be a no-win scenario.

[alethia]

Hmmmm...hubby is in family practice. Says that we still cannot get smallpox vaccine. Not available through health departments.

[Lazamataz]

Sure hope the Brainiacs^® in Washington are mobilizing an innoculation creation program.

[Don Myers]

"you're an even bigger idiot than I thought you were"

It is impossible for him to be a bigger idiot than I think he is.