US Plans Smallpox Jab For All Civilians

Independent (UK) ^ | 9-24-2002 | Andrew Gumbel

[blam]

US plans smallpox jab for all civilians

By Andrew Gumbel in Los Angeles
24 September 2002

The US government has drawn up plans to vaccinate almost the entire population against smallpox if the country is attacked with a rogue laboratory sample of the virus.

As part of a flurry of contingency plans in the event of chemical or biological attack, the Department of Health and Human Services yesterday sent out a 100-page manual explaining how states and local health authorities should set about inoculating 280 million Americans within a week of a smallpox outbreak.

The department said 75 million doses of the vaccine could be shipped in a single day. The process would not be problem-free, since existing vaccines are experimental and may trigger harmful side-effects up to and including death. Recipients of the vaccine would have to sign a release form, and many categories of people – including those with Aids and some cancer patients – would not be eligible to receive it.

It is believed that the vaccine could offer life-saving protection even to people who had contracted the virus, which was effectively eradicated from the planet a generation ago, so long as they were inoculated within the first few days.

The US government has been scrambling to stockpile sufficient quantities of smallpox vaccine since last year's mysterious anthrax mailings, which killed five people and are now believed to have been the work of a renegade US government scientist. Separately, it is considering who, if anyone, to inoculate against smallpox even before the virus makes a reappearance.

[blam]

Someone knows something that we don't?

[B-Chan]

It's just prudent planning based on an exercise run last winter.
View the study's sphincter-clenching results.

[blam]

Good scary link. Thanks.

[xrp]

Why would 280,000,000 Americans need the vaccine? Haven't all US citizens born before 1972 already be vaccinated? Surely they wouldn't have to do it again.

[blam]

"Surely they wouldn't have to do it again."

I still have my scar from the 50's but, apparently I'll need another.

[Cicero]

They are STILL thinking in terms of Government Knows Best, Keep Your Mouth Shut, and Do What I Say. Which, as we all know, is a disaster waiting to happen.

If Bush had any sense--and he often seems to--he would lean on these guys to distribute the vaccine in the normal way ASAP, and let private individuals, families, and their physicians make the choice. Then if there's an emergency, at least part of the population will already be vaccinated and the problem won't be so bad.

Who picked out the panel that's doing this planning? David Satcher? It might as well have been.

As to what's in the wind, Iraq. There could be an emergency as soon as next month. So why are they still kicking this around like a bunch of stupid bureaucratic stooges?

[blam]

"So why are they still kicking this around like a bunch of stupid bureaucratic stooges?"

My guess is that they are expecting deaths from some getting the vaccine and only under emergency conditions will the population 'go along.'

[toddst]

I still have my scar from the 50's but, apparently I'll need another.

From what I've read you (and I) may be just fine having received vaccinations when we did. It would be reassuring to hear more about how well protected those of us are who were vaccinated years ago.

[blam]

"It would be reassuring to hear more about how well protected those of us are who were vaccinated years ago."

I've read that we'll need another.

[AdamSelene235]

My guess is that they are expecting deaths from some getting the vaccine and only under emergency conditions will the population 'go along.'

The projected numbers of deaths would be only in the hundreds if you jabbed the entire nation. Many orders of magnitude safer than riding in a car.

I suppose the concept of making something *voluntary* has never occured to our rulers.

[FITZ]

My guess is that they are expecting deaths from some getting the vaccine and only under emergency conditions will the population 'go along.'

I want the smallpox vaccine for my kids and myself ---the sooner the better but there will be some real issues for those with AIDS and advanced HIV infections, also those on chemotherapy, those on immunosuppressant drugs to prevent a transplant rejection. People with no or low immunity can die from the vaccinia virus which is the vaccine.

[AdamSelene235]

From what I've read you (and I) may be just fine having received vaccinations when we did. It would be reassuring to hear more about how well protected those of us are who were vaccinated years ago.

Vaccination will probably not help against weaponized smallpox. Do a search on mousepox & interleukin-4. I believe Ken Alibek said smallpox had been tricked out to form a chimera called smallpox-V.

[tall_tex]

Having been born in 1943 got mine when I became the proper age. Had to take another in 73 when it was required for a vacation to Tahiti. The later did not take, no sore or scar.

I think that if the government made an announcement to have everyone show up for a vacination due to an outbreak of even one case of smallpox, this country would go beserk.

They go beserk when thier basketball team wins a national championship, (Milwaukee 1977 I think), or when Rodney King gets his due.

I can't believe it took hundreds of pages of "how to's" from the government to tell local officials how to handle this.

It would only take me a few sentences. Start vacinating now. Start with the military, health workers, police, firemen, sorry, "firepersons", school kids, move on up as additional vacine becomes available Those who are at risk, HIV etc, can either take'm or leave'm.

The population, for the most part, would be protected, from those that chose not to and those who should not. We take the smallpox weapon off the table.

[blam]

"Vaccination will probably not help against weaponized smallpox. Do a search on mousepox & interleukin-4. I believe Ken Alibek said smallpox had been tricked out to form a chimera called smallpox-V."

Scary.

On a similar subject, I heard Fox News report once this morning that six people in Mississippi are paralysed from West Nile Virus.

[tall_tex]

AMEN!!!!

[tall_tex]

I think more will die in the mad rush to get to the centers than will die from the disease.

[blam]

"I think more will die in the mad rush to get to the centers than will die from the disease."

Time will tell (BTW, I was born in 1943 also)

[Frohickey]

It would only take me a few sentences. Start vacinating now. Start with the military, health workers, police, firemen, sorry, "firepersons", school kids, move on up as additional vacine becomes available Those who are at risk, HIV etc, can either take'm or leave'm.

Couldn't we just vaccinate Republicans and libertarians instead of the entire country? ;)

[Chemist_Geek]

and many categories of people – including those with Aids and some cancer patients – would not be eligible to receive it.

I smell an "equal protection clause" lawsuit just itching to get out of that statement...

Never mind the fact that they'll be demanding we waste doses from the finite supply of vaccine on people with demonstrably terminal illnesses...

[AUsome Joy]

I had one from childhood and 20 years later had to have another one to go overseas. I developed a really bad sore and was so sick. When they give them to the whole population, there will be some really sick people.