Mass smallpox vaccination prepared

BBC ^ | 10/09/2002

[UKCajun]

Millions of doses of the smallpox vaccine are to be stockpiled by the government to prepare for mass vaccination in the event of a bio-terrorist attack. The Department of Health said that while there was no evidence of a specific threat it was carrying out "intensive planning" just in case. Key health workers, including doctors and nurses, will be first to be offered the vaccine. They will form the first line of defence in any outbreak, caring for those taken ill in isolation.We should have in place enough vaccine to vaccinate on a mass population basis if necessary ....

However, Dr Ian Gibson, Labour MP and chairman of the Commons science and technology committee, said the government should be vaccinating the entire population and not just healthworkers. "We should move as quickly as possible to innoculating the whole population," he told the BBC. Dr Gibson added that a biological attack on the UK "will happen eventually". He said: "I'm sure somebody will try it."

[Diana Rose]

I could see this bug getting loose before it is targeted at the US. The Dems and UN then call for countries (guess who)that have vaccine to send it in to help and then when it spreads to the US we are screwed.

[Sabertooth]

The least costly response is to simply allow free market conditions to function. The gov't is WITHHOLDING vaccine from release currently and as a physician, I urge the gov't to complete their bureaucratic machinations and get this vaccine rolling again.

I recall reading somewhere that one reason for withholding the innoculation is that if the freshly vaccinated come into contact with an AIDS patient, the AIDS patient could be infected.

Seemed unlikely, since the vaccine is not actually variola major, but have you heard anything like this?

Would AIDS patients be at any greater risk if they were vaccinated themselves?

[bonesmccoy]

Please see my other thread.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/764815/posts

AAP SUPPORTS 'RING VACCINATION' IN CASE OF SMALLPOX OUTBREAK (LIBERAL BIAS BARF WARNING)

[bonesmccoy]

AAP SUPPORTS 'RING VACCINATION' IN CASE OF SMALLPOX OUTBREAK (LIBERAL BIAS BARF WARNING)

See this thread.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/764815/posts

[backhoe]

FYI, FWIW- follow all the links within the links; there's a lot of information:

The Poor-Boy Nuke-- Bioterrorism***

Nuclear, Biological, & Chemical Warfare- Survival Skills, Pt. II

[AdamSelene235]

I think they should vaccinate everyone who wants it. They're closer to Iraq than we are. They don't have an ocean to slow the killers down.

Somehow I don't think terrorists are going to try to swim across the ocean.

[UKCajun]

Speaking of bugs getting loose, the incidence of turberculosis in the U.K. (London area) is showing a sharp increase. Apparently this is related to Heathrow and Gatwick passenger (developing countries) traffic? My kids (we are American) in British schools came home the other day with a permission slip for a BCG test and/or innoculation depending on the results! Too much.

[elfman2]

Those 1 billion deaths didn't come with modern vaccine, medical and quarantine procedures ready to go.

Hyping the smallpox danger to Armageddon proportions in a book also causes it to sell well. Like we've never seen that before.

[bonesmccoy]

The US standard is to do skin testing. The US does not use the Tb immunization called BCG. We prefer to surveillance the population using the PPD skin test. IF a child turns positive, then we just treat them for Tb.

[UKCajun]

That was the recommendation of my brother-in-law. He's an infectious disease doc in NC. Based on his advice, we declined permission. The big question for us is "Why is there this big influx of Tb?" We thought society said good riddance to that decades ago!

[UKCajun]

Scary stuff. Can't ignore it.

[bonesmccoy]

Some physicians in the US noticed a surge in Tb in the late 80's and earky 90's. Some conjecture was that the skin tests were not picking up the diseases (so false negatives led to missed diagnoses and more spread). Another suggestion was that the AIDS patients were spreading it around because Tb was in the AIDS population. Is HIV on the rise in the UK?

[UKCajun]

I believe HIV is on the rise in the UK. If I recall correctly something I read recently, I believe it is related to the influx from eastern European countries that have recently joined the EU. Some is also attributable to old Soviet bloc countries. Testing for Tb (xray) is done on entry into the UK for persons intending to stay for work.

[Thud]

ping

[bonesmccoy]

Yes, but if the UK public health system (which is socialized) can not accommodate all the increased need (testing, drugs, facility, staffing, etc.), you end up with what you are observing... increasing disease and increasing costs that spiral.

We've had spiraling healthcare costs in our nation for the past 10 years because of the democrats' health policies. When democrats propose changes to the healthcare system it is almost always tied to increasing payroll to unionized labor, stealing resources from private institutions like hospitals and the local clinic, and killing profit from small/medium sized companies who are forced into paying for premiums that spiral up. This causes insurance company profits to sore, increasing executive compensation and increasing donations to the Democrats.

I've heard that HIV is out of control in Eastern Europe. The trafficking of women in sex rings and prostitution/drug rings has resulted in a social implosion. The US needs to block our borders from this type of immigration. The UK should do the same.

I would expect Tb rates to continue to rise in the UK if there is a steady influx of Eastern European immigrants. The communist health care systems of the Warsaw Pact created mediocrity. It is precisely this mediocrity that I am attempting to prevent in our nation.

[backhoe]

Thanks for looking, & feel free to copy and send that stuff across the web. People need information first and foremost.

[The Great Satan]

Smallpox is not likely in Saddam's doomsday toolkit -- if it was, we most likely would have heard about it after Hussein Kamil's defection in 1995. Saddam's CBW program is based on three major agents:

• Anthrax
• Botulinum toxin
• VX gas

Certainly, it is a good thing that we will shortly have stocks on hand to innoculate the whole population against smallpox, if necessary. After all, you never know. But even if Saddam had smallpox, it would make a poor vengeance weapon. First, most of the victims would eventually be in the Third World, which won't have vaccine. Secondly, simulations of such attacks indicate that, even in the event of mass dispersals, the final death toll in the United States would not likely exceed the hundreds, because of the slowness with which the disease spreads and the ease of containment. Note that the much-publicized, worst-case "Dark Winter" Scenario, which foresees a million dead, is based on an attack without vaccine on hand. Thirdly, smallpox does not destroy property or involve an area-denial effect.

In contrast, the key component of Saddam's WMD arsenal, anthrax, is capable of producing far higher casualties and almost unimaginable economic damage. A recent Rand study predicted up to 3 million dead from a large-scale anthrax dispersal in California -- far higher than the death toll from any conceivable hand-delivered smallpox, nuke or dirty bomb-type attack. A 1993 Congressional Office of Technology Assessment study predicted a death toll of up to 3 million from an anthrax attack on Washington, DC. It was this study that Sec. Def. William Cohen famously referenced in his "bag of sugar" demonstration. Recall, to, that any city which depends heavily on a subway for its economic livelihood can be basically written-off if Saddam's sleepers release the "Daschle" type aerosolizable anthrax in the subway system. Decontamination would take years, so a city like New York would become essentially waste ground after such an attack, never mind the initial casualties. Recall, too, that 4 million people use the NYC subway every day. In the event of a large scale anthrax release on that subway -- say an al-Qaeda martyrdom operative tossing the contents of a breifcase onto the tracks the night before rush hour -- not only could you expect a large fraction of these people to die but, given the extremely time-critical nature of any treatment, a complete collapse of the civil order would be inevitable.

After he destroyed the World Trade Center last year, Saddam put Bush on notice as to what the final consequence of any showdown would be, sending the US political leadership a sample of the most highly-weaponized anthrax ever produced, along with a warning:

If you have been wondering why the buildup for the campaign against Iraq has been so leisurely, or why the US government has been stalling the public over the source and meaning of the anthrax letters for a year, wonder no more. Engage your noggin, and think it through. For the time being, at least, we are truly f***ed. The advantage in war is always with the aggressor, because he has worked out his moves beforehand. It will take the rest of Bush's term before we can hope to get ourselves out of this pickle.

[The Great Satan]

biothreat analysis

[aristeides]

Isn't there evidence that Iraq has been experimenting with camelpox? I wonder if it would be possible to genetically modify it into something nasty. Alternatively, it could be the source of a vaccine effective against smallpox.