Oh dear. Better hope he doesn't have anything genetically-engineered to evade the vaccine. I use genetically-engineered viruses in my work, and it is rather frightening how easy it is with current technology to play mix and match with these things. For instance, it is quite routine to take an ecotrophic virus (one that only infects a single species) and turn into an amphitrophic virus (one that infects a wide range of species) simply by swapping out the genes that code for the coat proteins. If Saddam is operating at that level of technology, I venture to say we could lose about a third of the population in the coming showdown -- comparable to a full-scale nuclear exchange. If he has only conventional smallpox, anthrax, botulism, etc., then we may be able to contain the threat to something managable by building up our civil defense infrastucture. Even then, I don't think we're near that point -- perhaps in a couple of years. I expect Bush to keep up the rhetorical heat on Saddam and pursue every avenue to put the squeeze on him, including military pressure, but I thing those who are expecting a big assault in the next 12 months will be disappointed. Way too dangerous, I'm afraid.
10 posts. A million on Michael Jackson.
But, there is little to say. Except it is major.
Crazy freaks will put in their worthless 2 cents (eg W.G.).
I work. I'm a taxpayer. Why can't I get my vaccination now.
The genetically altered and potency enhanced smallpox agent was directed to the Iranian terrorist state, by the corrupt cash hungry Boris Yeltsin PM Chernomyrdin who wanted to make sure other deadly conventional weapon system purchases were completed.
"The Russians sold the Iranians the smallpox bioweapons almost as an afterthought. The Russians are literally swimming in the stuff! Appoximately 50 metric tons of smallpox agent are just laying around the former Soviet Union. The smallpox was just an added bonus, thrown in as a deal sweetener." The Iranian regime said that it needed the agent to supress the ethnic Kurdish population.
Now the agent has been smuggled around the globe by Al-Queda operatives and poses a potent terrorist threat to the entire world. The Iranians desparately want plausable deniability. That's the only holdup in the use of smallpox.
Evidence the abrupt about face in the Bush Administration. Immunization causes 15 cases per 100,000 innoculations. Vaccination will be conducted using an innoculum that has been diluted and cannot be relied upon to confer immunity in it's recipients. This can only be discribed as full blown panic in Washington DC.
Wide awake now?
Peace,
DrMike
But it would be so much better to do it before a 'large outbreak'.
"Now we can act differently because we have more vaccine," Dr. Donald A. Henderson
Translation: "Now we medics can get ourselves vaccinated".
Dr. Kaplan, of Yale, presented a study done with colleagues from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology that described how a smallpox attack could affect a crowded metropolitan region like New York City. What began as 1,000 infections at a train station or airport, he said, would spiral over weeks and months into 97,000 deaths if fought with ring vaccination alone.
"By contrast," he said, "post-attack mass vaccination would result in only 525 deaths" from the smallpox virus, which takes about two weeks to develop in the body before symptoms become obvious.
Finally, someone with common sense. The ring vaccination strategy would completely fail to prevent high numbers of casualties.
If they did the mass vaccinations before an attack there would only be about 180 deaths. Because Soddem'll and his al "psycho" Qaeda pals fantasise about a large scale Smallpox attack, such a policy would also have a deterrent value. The payload from a Smallpox attack would be so small it would no longer be worthwhile. If only the US and British governments could wake up to this fact, probably they are too busy arranging there own Smallpox vaccinations.
No doubt the underlying threat of an attack is being taken very seriously if we have escalated to these steps.
I think the next key to watch is if the military starts getting vaccinated. No doubt they are first on the list for delivery of new vaccine.