Posted on 10/08/2001 6:56:39 AM PDT by 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.
But see the post from Physicist, above.
Ask Saddam. He'll tell you he's innocent, too.
I merely pointed out to you the difference in intent between the drunk and the evil dictator.
If the west won't buy their oil, who will??
When someone has a gun pointed at you do you wait for him to kill you before you fire back or do you kill first in self defense?
I figured it was something like this. I'd like to say it makes me feel better but...
alethia - I'm pretty sure my mom told me they had discontinued the vaccine by the time I was born, that was in 1961. I could be mistaken, this was in MI.
MKM
Yes, but nobody exemplifies those traits better than you.
The mainstream libertarian view is simple common sense (as it is on most issues, really). A clear and present threat (either deliberate, such as someone brandishing a weapon, or negligent, such as someone driving while seriously impaired) justifies such action as may be necessary to disarm the threat.
Determining what constitutes a "threat" does call for some thought. For instance a neighbor with a gun is not (generally -- somone who has given indications of mental instability is another question) a threat, because a gun is a targeted weapon. A neighbor with a garage full of explosives is a threat, because explosives are dangerous to anyone within the blast radius.
Here is an article from the 5th regarding the US government asking the only authorized producer of Small Pox vaccine to increase production.
US Asks small pox vaccine producer to increase production 10/05/2001
I hope the British journalist who was just released didn't have some awful disease to spread...
The initiation of force is immoral. Always.
However, if it is clear that an individual intends to initiate force against you, it is not incumbent upon you to wait until he strikes to utilize force in your own defense.
You may morally act in your own defense prior to being struck.
An analogy... If a mugger just shot the man next to you, then proceeds to raise a gun in your direction, it can clearly be assumed that the mugger has a hostile intent. This would morally entitle the use of force in your own defense.
I think the analogy applies quite readily here.
1) Most adults in this country are vaccinated. This means that if there is smallpox about, once they close the schools it will not spread very fast -- even old vaccinations protect you. There is a small chance an old vaccination won't if you receive a large exposure, and this phenomenon is the reason some states used to give booster shots, but smallpox booster shots were never considered a necessity, as they were with many other diseases.
2) Smallpox is not infectious until it is clinically apparent.
3) If you ARE exposed to someone with smallpox, and you get the vaccine within a couple of days, you have a good chance of avoiding getting sick.
4) The figures often given are that smallpox is 30% fatal, but with the modern medicine we have many more people would survive. As with most viral diseases, the key to survival is just to hang on long enough for your immune system to gear up sufficiently, then your body will kill the viruses and you will be immune (unfortunately retoviruses like HIV write themselves into your DNA so this doesn't apply to them).
All the above are reasons not to panic, but a smallpox is still a serious threat which requires that we prepare by manufacturing and distributing vaccines as fast as we can. However, I am more seriously worried about plague (not anthrax because it can't pass from person to person so any attack-induced epidemic will be very localized).
Mystery epidemic kills hundreds in Afghanistan
Source: Afghan News
Date: Feb 22, 1999
Afghanistan has asked the World Health Organisation for help dealing with an epidemic that is killing dozens of people a day near the Tajik border in Afghanistan, a UN official disclosed here. Due to the gravity of the situation and fear that the epidemic might spread into more areas, the WHO is sending an urgent medical help to Afghanistan to help the authorities cope with the alarming situation.
The illness, thought perhaps to be plague or cholera, has spread during the last week through several impoverished villages in Badakhshan mountains of Afghanistan. A lack of qualified medical personnel and diagnostic equipment has complicated efforts to identity the disease. As a result dozens of people are dying everyday. However, the help is rather slow given the tense situation in Afghanistan and the security aspects as well. Plague is typically spread by rodents or other small animals. Untreated, it is often fatal, but it can be treated with antibiotics. Latest statistics show that over 2,000 people are affected by the epidemic. About 250 people have so far died due to lack of medical treatment. Symptoms of the epidemic are fever, cough, pain, vomiting and diarrhea, with elderly women and children the worst affected.
AFP adds: A "mystery disease" has killed 250 people in remote villages in northeast Afghanistan, a UN spokesman said Friday. Experts from the World Health Organization (WHO) plan to attempt to travel to the villages in the Darwaz region in the next few days, UN spokesman Fred Eckhard said. Last week officials in Darwaz told the WHO that 2,000 people were suffering from the illness, and that 250 of them had died. Symptoms of the sickness include fever, cough, aches, vomiting and diarrhea, he said. The WHO plans to send two epidemiologists to Dushanbe, in neighboring Tajikistan. From their they will attempt to reach the affected villages, he said. The villages, located in narrow valleys between high mountains, are normally accessible only by foot or on donkey, and take 10 days to reach, Eckhard said
Deport the Terrorist Armies from the USA: YES.
Encourage private industry to quickly develop and market a smallpox vaccine: YES.
Those are my three votes on this subject.
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