Experts Urge Mass Vaccination for Smallpox Attack (Watch Out)

Reuters ^ | Sun Jul 7 | By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Correspondent

[cake_crumb]

Mass hysteria scare alert.

Loook.....right now, the people who need to get vaccinated ARE geting vaccinated. Voluntary vaccinations ARE open to the public.

Slow news day???

The CDC needed to know who needed to be vaccinated first. Obvious answer, ANYONE WHO CAN BE DEFINED IN ANY WAY SHAPE OR FORM AS A FIRST RESPONDER TO AN EMERGENGY. THEY are at the top of the list. The rest of us ...we can wait.

[backhoe]

As one whose late first wife was severely handicapped, I take a special interest in such issues- but I'll confess a bit of skepicism over that large a jump. I think further data is required before drawing new conclusions.

[Iwo Jima]

Voluntary vaccinations ARE open to the public.

Oh,really? Then where, pray tell, can I go to get my vaccination TODAY?

It is, or should be, my decision, don't you agree?

[cake_crumb]

"I think further data is required before drawing new conclusions."

As do I.

Look...if you were a terrorist, looking to infect a large population with smallpox...a population, I might add, which might be largly immune to the bacterium.....how would you do it, especially since we are looking for that sort of thing? As well as suspiciuos prople (racial profiling) suspicious planes (aeronautic profiling)?

Best thing to do would be to infect a human being, and send him or her out amongst us.....

So, the infected him or her gets really sick and dies. That person runs their car into...say ....a tree....on a freeway. They are infected. Whom responds to such things first? The highway patrol, generally....or the volunteer fire rescue crews, whomever gets to the accident first. Whom should be innoculated first?

Obviously, anyone who can be defined as a first responder to any disaster, be they US military, National Guard, piloce, fire-rescue, dr's and all ER staff....in that order....

because...DUH...who is most likely to carry the d@mned infection back home and make their family and neighbors sick??? In addition, I proposed all missionaries be innoculates and classified as first responders. THEN the rest of us. We are less important to the spread of a potential plague then those who are on the periphery and just SCARED of it.

[backhoe]

My nightmare scenario all along has been a radical group infecting hundreds or thousands of willing "martyrs" with something nasty like smallpox and then scattering them across the world on airlines and into large cities.

[Kozak]

One of every dozen U.S. children and teenagers -- 5.2 million -- has a physical or mental disability, according to new figures from the 2000 Census that reflect sharp growth in the nation's young handicapped population over the past decade

No what that really represents is that is now ADVANTAGEOUS to get your child labeled as "disabled" for someone. As a parent you may qualify for special government handouts. For the schools it means oodles of Federal dinero. A classic example of economics at work, that which is subsidised will be produced in abundance...

[Carry_Okie]

First, I haven't stated any "facts" other than that DynPort has the contract to produce the vaccine. Do you dispute that? I am not exactly thrilled by what I have read of their record producing Anthrax vaccine (re FDA disqualifications), but then, I am not an expert and am not privy to the FDA's objections (I have worked in the medical device sector and know how that can be). Second, my understanding is that this is a NEW vaccine as the old process of growing vaccina in cattle supposedly carries "unreasonable" risks of BSE (BSE is itself a somewhat curious phenomena lacking full proofs of the mechanics of the disease. I have read credible speculation that it was caused by topical organophosphate exposure, but again, don't have complete data on that either). I would feel more comfortable purchasing a product manufactured by a process proven by field testing.

I would VASTLY prefer that the vaccine be produced using private capital with appropriate liablility insurance. I might buy that product in a heartbeat, but my government has said that I can't because of the risks associated with the vaccine, a decision I regard as irresponsible. A private market might get diversified manufacturing capacity up sooner and that would be all to the good (best not to have a single target, no?).

So, what the hell is "nutcase leftist conspiracy nonsense" about that and what evidence do YOU have that I ascribe to whatever theory you think you are talking about?

If there is a conspiracy, then I think it would arise out of Russia (so drop the "lefwing" part). It was they who first proposed that the WHO eradicate smallpox in 1954. When eradication was achieved the WHO (and American leftists) leaned all over the US to destroy its stocks of vaccines and smallpox virus stored at the CDC. The US obviously refused and not without reason as the Soviets were producing weaponized smallpox virus at BioPreperat at that very time. It is interesting that we are so concerned about that now that the vaccinations have worn off, and that we did little about BioPreparat since the collapse of the Soviet Union, statements by Mr. Alibek notwithstanding (though I have no idea how credible he is either).

So I don't think you have any basis for your wild accusations, unless you can show me otherwise, and why would you object me flagging someone who knows more about this than I?

[itsahoot]

it would backfire and wipe out 3rd world cultures (Arabs, Africa,
etc) more than it hit Americans

Except that is acceptable to them, they are willing to die, think about it.

[cake_crumb]

"My nightmare scenario all along has been a radical group infecting hundreds or thousands of willing "martyrs" with something nasty like smallpox and then scattering them across the world on airlines and into large cities."

Everyone's is....except that it COULDN'T be smallpox....ALL Europeans have an inherant immunity to it. What we should be watching for is government labs broken into, all over the world. Armed guards CAN be a deterrant, can't they?

[backhoe]

Guards would be a cheap form of insurance. The big drawback of biological weapons has always been efficient delivery of them. Not long ago you could buy some rather nasty pathogens almost "over the counter," and tightening restrictions and physical security only makes sense.

[Capt. Tom]

The first thing that came to my mind was Pres. Gerald Ford's Swine flu fiasco. In 1976, due to an outbreak of influenza at Fort Dix, New Jersey "The United States set a precedent in immunology by attempting to vaccinate the entire population of the country against the possibility of a swine-type Influenza A epidemic."

The complications from those vaccines cost the taxpayers millions.

Anecdote: On a Friday afternoon an elderly friend who had just gotten a swine flu shot called me over to his office and gave me some pure Vermont maple syrup he had gotten from Vermont.

I used it on pancakes over the weekend. Monday I went over to thank him and found out he died over the weekend.

Plenty of vaccinated people developed Guillain-Barréacute; Syndrome (GBS). GBS is a rare paralytic disease, similar to polio, which causes an onset of polyneuritis, or tingling and weakness of the extremities and then some extent of paralysis. Preliminary calculations estimated that while there were 0.7 cases of GBS per million of non-vaccines at this time, there were 8.3 cases per million in vaccines.

Not only this, but those non-vaccines which developed GBS were much more likely to have been sick prior to the syndrome than those who were vaccines, suggesting that the vaccine contained the trigger effect that usually would not have been present in healthy individuals.

Don't mass vaccinate. It is one thing to vaccinate a healthy soldier but to vacinate the entire population is irresponsible.- Tom

[Paleo Conservative]

When eradication was achieved the WHO (and American leftists) leaned all over the US to destroy its stocks of vaccines and smallpox virus stored at the CDC. The US obviously refused and not without reason as the Soviets were producing weaponized smallpox virus at BioPreperat at that very time. It is interesting that we are so concerned about that now that the vaccinations have worn off, and that we did little about BioPreparat since the collapse of the Soviet Union, statements by Mr. Alibek notwithstanding (though I have no idea how credible he is either).

It's a good thing that Carter was not re-elected int 1980. He very well might have destroyed our stocks of vaccine and variola.

[Carry_Okie]

You've got that right. He was (and is) truly dangerous.

[Brilliant]

The fact that they are expanding the vaccinations tells you that Saddam's demise is getting closer.

[Bommer]

More Paranoic BS! They don't have Small Pox, or dirty nukes or anything else. If they did posess any of this, Target #1 isn't going to be the one country that can wipe Islam off the map, its going to be against the one thing they hate more than us, the Jews! Israels'inhilation is first on their "hatred through love 'to do' list!"

[Libertarianize the GOP]

.

[tomkat]

Target #1 isn't going to be the one country that can wipe Islam off the map

can and would live on different sides of town ...

btw, am i hearing that the vaccinations we got in the fifties are no longer effective ?
also, should our family GP have access to vaccines, should we want to get the kids jabbed ?

[Bommer]

Your vaccination is probably useless. I would figure that the CDC would have a mass roll out (ala Swine Flu Vaccine) for mass innoculations. I'd worry more about getting Influenza which is far more easy to get host transmittal then smallpox.

[RaceBannon]

These people are morons. If there is sucha htreat for smallpox, then innoculation needs to start immediately, anywhere, to anyone, just to get started on spreading the protection. We have no idea where an attack can occur, so just start in as many major cities as you can until more vaccinations are ready!

PS, do people under 60 first, and of them, kids first, the most vulnerable first.

[Centurion2000]

Lovely .....