[ChemistCat]

My personal plan, subject to modification, will be implemented upon the first diagnosis of smallpox anywhere in CONUS. It's a simple plan based on cutting the odds of being exposed. We'll hole up with our food storage and our books, videos, and music. I will finally have my chance to see what the homeschooling crowd enjoys. Any contact with outsiders will be curtailed, including my medical appointments. I do not expect my government to be prepared for this if it is already in play; I won't be holding my breath for effective vaccination to be available to the masses, either. I don't intend to panic, because isolation WILL work unless we're so unfortunate as to be one of the first or second waves exposed. The odds are pretty low of that being a problem. However, the "just go buy a car" crowd could really get a lot of people killed. If this happens, I'm afraid that people won't take it seriously enough.

I would really like to see the nation's colleges and high schools developing plans for distance/home-based education of students if this particular emergency develops. Merely slowing the mobility of our society would inhibit the spread of even the most virulent strains of biowar viruses.

I might add that if this happens to us, I want the terrorists repaid with interest.

[Jewels1091]

Every single manufacturer of the smallpox vacine is making it now. There will be enough for the entire nation by next summer. Until then they have about 100 million doses. I don't think we have anything to worry about right now. I had 2 or 3 of them when I was a kid, none of them 'took', I never got the scar like everyone else did.

[cajungirl]

I think if it happens, the feds are ready to do what they did at the last outbreak in 1977. They come in an vaccinate an entire population, stop all travel in and out, vaccinate anyone who has been in the area and quarantine. I for one plan if there is a single case to stay home, not answer the door, get my grandsons here as well as my daughter. Anyone who leaves the house other than to get vaccine won't be let back in. I am very serious. Then you just hunker down for a couple of months and wait it out. I do believe there are enough vaccine, 10 mill, to deal with epidemics. Would hate to see it tested.

[harrier13]

Why haven't you done that for the flu?

It kills 20,000 people a year.

[69ConvertibleFirebird]

One must assume that the Federal Government will handle Smallpox as they handle any other highly dangerous and deadly disease. Take for example a current disease (epidemic???). The government has passed laws not allowing doctors to test paitents for the disease. Rather than contain the disease they suggest people go ahead and do the very act that will spread it but "be careful." And, The government is spending gazillions of dollars to cure the non-curable disease rather than spend virtually nothing to stop the spread of the disease. Of course you all know that the disease is AIDS.

As for Smallpox I'll simply wear my gas mask everywhere in public. Will that do the trick or does it enter through miscelaneous other orifices???

[harrier13]

Those houses that were built in the 50's with bomb shelters have in increased in property value.

[Gimlet]

Do I sense some wishful thinking? Hey...a smallpox epidemic would be a terrible thing and unfortunately we have not invested in public health systems to help deal and contain it.Living off the grid in a remote area may help...for a while. But it can get you too. Best to take it on the chin as a nation and try to deal with it head on. You say you will want revenge...who will deliver it to whom and with whose resouces?

[Riley]

I have read a lot about Smallpox in the last week or so, including a nasty article posted here titled, 'The Demon in the Freezer'.

Since then, I have visited the website for the CDC, which (somewhat surprisingly) has a great deal of well organised, pertinent information. Among the things that I found out there, was that Smallpox only has about a 30% mortality rate.

Having said that, I think that your isolation idea is not bad, should there be a general outbreak that overwhelms the medical resources regionally or nationally. I have considered doing either that, or an extended camping trip- depending on how things play out locally. (I live in California- there's no guarantee that the Governor won't do something stunningly stupid in response to such a scenario, like try to herd people together.)

[Governor StrangeReno]

Check your genealogy you might be in luck both my parents were told they were immune to it.

[Lion's Cub]

Here are a couple of related articles for anyone interested.

Model health law empowers states : Drugs, quarantine could be forced

A NEW SMALLPOX VACCINE FROM ABORTIONS? SMALLPOX VACCINE TO USE FETAL CELLS

[MadelineZapeezda]

My husband's 2 aunts had smallpox in the 1930's and survived. They are both still alive and well. They came from a family of 8 children, the other 6 never getting the disease. The family was immediately quarintined. The parents had been immigrants to this country and were already vaccinated. The other children were vaccinated by the board of health within an hour of the doctor visit. This bit of information may offer you some relief.

[MindBender26]

There is an interesting description of smallpox prevention in the new biography on John Adams. Great new book on a great patriot, in all the stores. Author is McCullough or something like that. (My copy loaned out)

Section describes smallpox epidemics sweeping Amercian Army under Washington, then stationed outside Boston. Blacks, many of whom were Freemen in Massachusetts had a very early African form of vaccination against smallpox. Whites, including Mrs. Adams, were attracted to treatment, as they saw benefits that few Blacks got disease and most cases were rather mild.

Process was simple. Insert limited ammount of pus from pox from patient recovering well in final stages of disease into incision on arm of person to be vaccinated.

Because original patient's immune system had killed most of disease, person vaccinated got only a weak form of disease, and many got no symptoms of disease at all, except for first few days of discomfort, such as we get from flu shot.

Mrs. Adams had this done for all kids, including future president, John Quincy Adams, and all survived after varying degrees of disease. Some were very sick, but nothing like full smallpox that was often fatal. John Adams was very much againstidea, but away in Philladelphia at Congress and couldn't prevent her from doing it... but greatly appreciated result when he saw none of his children lost to the disease.

Certainly this portion of a history book is no reason to go infect yourself with smallpox pus (yuk) but something to consider and investigate.

PS, I'm covered. Vaccinated twice for RVN and few years ago for Africa.

If Smallpox spread here, nuc all enemy in ME. Start with Kabala stone.

[Ragtime Cowgirl]

If I found out I only had a short time to live I just may use a bit of my remaining strength to punch out a journalist.

[vetvetdoug]

I am going to have my family milk as many cows infected with Vaccinia virus as they can if the government and the vaccine makers can't come up with enough doses to protect them.

[dalebert]

Build up your immune system and you might survive smallpox without a shot. One expert said vitamin c,e,a and selliniam would help fend off several things.

[Paleo Conservative]

If there were a shortage of vaccine for the US population, there is a way to increase the available supply before more vaccine could be manufactured. It is possible to get a secondary immunization from someone who has been vaccinated and the vaccine has taken. The scabs from the vaccine scar can be used to vaccinate others. This method was used to transfer vaccina from Europe to South America in the early 19th century. A group of orphans was put on a ship with one of them recently vaccinated. As when one child would start to heal from vaccination, another child would be given a vaccination from the arm of the previous child. The process of tranferring from arm to arm continued while they crossed the Atlantic. Then the arm to arm method was used to vaccinate populations in South America. The arm to arm method also was used by the Confederacy during the Civil War, but it also caused an outbreak of syphillis.

A really good book that discusses the history of smallpox, its eradication, and potential use for biowarfare and terrorism is Scourge: The Once and Future Threat of Smallpox by Jonathan B. Tucker. It just came out in August.

[ChadsDad]

However, the "just go buy a car" crowd could really get a lot of people killed. If this happens, I'm afraid that people won't take it seriously enough

I fully endorse anyone buying a car!

[Artist]

And Now, the Good News about Smallpox

[munk]

I've read the vaccinations previously given are no longer good because of time. How many years is a vaccination good for? I wonder if the previously vaccinated would be less likely to die of the disease? One poster mentioned taking the pus of an infected individual in the latter stages of the disease and exposing it to a cut on the forearm on a non-infected person for a vaccination. I believe this was done historically but it is still quite possible to die if everything is not just 'right'.

[NotJustAnotherPrettyFace]

FYI - Smallpox has an incubation period of 12 days.

[Sci Fi Guy]

I heard on the radio that New York had a small pox outbreak decades ago. A hospital discovered that a man died from it it. It turns out that he had returned the month before from overseas. He had a whole month to spread it around. The city enacted a program to make sure that people could get the necessary injections. The program went as smooth as clockwork. Only about a dozen people ever got sick. Only one other person died of it.

I think that this will be a lot like the Y2K problems. A lot of talk and hype, but very little actual damage.