[truthandlife]

Smallpox

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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.

[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.

[Lizzy W]

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

[Don Myers]

bttt

[Lazamataz]

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

[spectre]

Michael Savage had an interesting, if not frightening theory on spreading the Smallpox virus. He said all the enemy has to do is inject and infect ONE person, and put that person on an airplane. From the passengers, to whoever the infected person mingles with, the smallpox exposure would set off a domino s effect. No one would know what hit us.

We need to be immunized for our own piece of mind.

sw

[donh]

by the way, "supportive therapy" mostly means electrolytic replacement. Which you can't do yourself because you aren't a doc, and you don't have a prescription, and fat chance you'll get one when medical facilities are overtaxed.

You also can't get anti-biotics, because you don't have a prescription and fat chance you'll get one when medical facilites are overtaxed.

Thank goodness that not only is has your non-libertarian government failed to prepare for this obvious emergency, but government regulation has made it impossible for you to do anything about it either.

[AmusedBystander]

Iraq Has Smallpox

Hopefully Irag will die from its infection and spare us the trouble of killing it.

[ZULU]

Just one more reason to blow away madman Saddam and thumb our noses at the Wahhadist oil Sheiks.

If the west won't buy their oil, who will??

[HamiltonJay]

Small Pox is far more of a threat than Anthrax ever will be! It is easily released, rapidly spread and absolutely devastating!

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

[Snowy]

****Put on your Tin Foil hats****

I hope the British journalist who was just released didn't have some awful disease to spread...

[VeritatisSplendor]

Much misinformation on this thread.

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).

[samtheman]

Go in and blast Iraq: YES.

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.

[A CA Guy]

Sounds like if we find this stuff, we need to release it back in Russia! Are they sure Russia did this? That means they aided terrorism.

[Sueann]

"smallpox"

But, aren't we protected against this! I have heard several doctors lately saying most of America is vacinated against smallpox. If this is so, then what is the threat??

[irish guard]

When I was a kid, I was vaccinated against smallpox.....Is this the same thing? Every article I read is silent on this question.