Posted on 01/31/2003 5:43:42 PM PST by RCW2001
Saturday February 1, 2003 1:30 AM
WASHINGTON (AP) - One soldier inoculated against smallpox has suffered a potentially serious skin reaction to the vaccine, and officials are investigating whether a second ill soldier also is reacting to the shot, the Pentagon said Friday.
It was the first report of any serious reaction to Americans receiving the vaccinations, which began in December for the military and are just now getting under way for civilians.
The first case, a 30-year-old Army soldier at a U.S. base, was a skin reaction called generalized vaccinia, and officials were confident it was linked to the man's vaccination 10 days earlier.
In the second case, a 26-year-old Army soldier was admitted to an overseas military hospital for encephalitis, a brain disease that can cause paralysis or permanent neurological damage. Diagnostic studies could not confirm that his reaction was due to his smallpox vaccination. But he had received the vaccination eight days earlier, and the timing made authorities suspicious. They are investigating further.
Both men now are in good condition, the Pentagon said.
Dr. William Winkenwerder Jr., assistant secretary of defense for health affairs, said the reactions were not surprising.
``We can expect additional reactions to occur; some will be significant reactions,'' he said in a statement.
There has been considerable discussion about the vaccine's risks, which are rare but serious. Experts believe that out of every million people being vaccinated for the first time, between 14 and 52 will face serious, life-threatening reactions, and one or two will die. People who come into close contact with vaccines also can be injured.
The vaccine is made with a live virus called vaccinia, which can escape the inoculation site and infect other parts of the body.
Routine smallpox vaccinations ended in this country in 1972 as the disease was being eradicated from Earth. The last U.S. case was in 1949. But officials fear smallpox could return in an act of bioterrorism, and the military believes its forces, on the cusp of war with Iraq, could face a biological attack.
Vaccinations are voluntary for civilians, but mandatory in the military.
The military has not said how many operational forces it has vaccinated so far, but said the total exceeds tens of thousands. In addition, the Pentagon has vaccinated 3,665 health care workers.
The military vaccinations began in December and include up to a half-million troops in high-risk areas, particularly Southwest Asia.
So far, most of the reactions have been minor, the Pentagon said. Three percent of the people being vaccinated had to take sick leave, with an average length of absence of 1.5 days.
The Defense Department would not release the names or locations of the two people who suffered more serious reactions.
The first case was identified last Saturday. The soldier developed a rash about 10 days after being vaccinated that included several pustules, or pus-filled blisters. The rash appears to be ``generalized vaccinia,'' in which the virus travels through the blood and infects the skin.
Generalized vaccinia can develop into a serious skin condition, but in this case, the soldier is well and continues to work at his normal assignment, the Pentagon said.
The second case was identified Sunday. The soldier's was diagnosed with encephalitis, but since the he has ``markedly improved, is in good condition and is expected to be released from the hospital soon,'' the Pentagon said.
Encephalitis can cause paralysis or permanent neurological damage. Symptoms include fever, headache, vomiting and drowsiness. Based on studies from the 1960s, one person out of every 300,000 vaccinated are expected to come down with this condition.
You also didn't have trial lawyers advertising on TV either.
WHO SMALLPOX ERADICATION SUCCESS RECONSIDERED
Although smallpox is apparently now accorded to the history books, it will be necessary to re-examine the issue of this disease having been universally eradicated, with particular reference to the WHO eradication campaign. An honest look at this question is of considerable importance, as the current worldwide UCI-EPI program gains much of its legitimacy and inspiration from this widely acclaimed success story.
A strong challenge to this now popular view, is reflected in the post-campaign findings of medical researchers like Buttram and Hoffman:
Most people probably credit the smallpox vaccine with playing the major role in recent eradication of smallpox throughout the world, but let us examine the facts. In the article 'Vaccines a Future in Question,' statistics showed that less than 10 percent of children in developing countries have received vaccines.
They went on to comment that with this level of coverage, the WHO campaign was not a real factor in the eradication. Data obtained in their broad based research also led them to conclude that "mass smallpox vaccination was not necessary for the eradication of smallpox.110
In further examining this question from a longer historical perspective, it became readily apparent that the WHO claim did not at all square with the earlier data, i.e., historical smallpox eradication efforts. If we go back as far as the last century, we discover that Creighton's independent research findings as published in the Ninth Edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica, strongly contradict the effectiveness of mass smallpox immunization programs. A few revealing excerpts follow:
As we move on into the earlier part of this century we find the same dismal picture of increased susceptibility correlated with increased vaccination coverage. Dettman and Kalokerinos describe a visit they paid to the Philippines about 15 years ago:
. . . We were fortunate enough to address their own medical (and) health officials where we reminded them of the incidence of smallpox in formerly "immunized" Filipinos. We invited them to consult their own medical records and asked them to correct us if our own facts and figures disagreed. No such correction has been forthcoming, and we can only conclude that between 1918-1919 there were 112,549 cases of smallpox notified, with 60,855 deaths. Systematic (mass) vaccination started in 1905, and since its introduction case mortality increased alarmingly. Their own records comment that "The mortality is hardly explainable." 112
Speaking at a 1973 environmental conference in Brussels, Professor George Dick admitted that in recent decades, 75 percent of those that have contracted smallpox in Britain, have had prior a history of vaccination. In that "only 40%" of children were vaccinated (and at most 10 percent of adults), such figures clearly indicate that the vaccinated--as in the much earlier historical record--continue to show a higher tendency to contract the disease. Dick also admitted that smallpox had been eradicated in certain tropical countries without mass vaccination.113 (Table VIII reveals that in the 16 year period preceding the year the WHO eradication campaign was launched--38 additional countries had ceased to report any smallpox cases.)114
A. Hutchison writing in the Journal of the Royal Society in 1974, referred to the smallpox vaccines "lack of potency" and the inadequacies of other measures for containment, in his words, "I have given details of the various outbreaks of smallpox in Britain and where they were diagnosed. These clearly indicate that the (preventive) measures are most ineffective.115
An article in the New Scientist indicates that "The smallpox family of viruses is genetically unstable," and that new viral strains which threaten the "WHO smallpox eradication programme, could emerge anywhere.116 It is thus of interest that in a 1980 article in the Australasian Nurses Journal, Dettman and Kalokerinos pointed out that electron-microscopy cannot distinguish between the various "poxviruses.117 (According to D, de Saving of IDRC, as of 1990 DNA sequencing can make the distinquishingment. What is not known though, is whether this has any beating on the reporting of the various "pox" diseases worldwide.) This fact led them to raise a vitally significant question "as to whether smallpox may be declared conquered, (it's estimated that only 10 percent of the world population actually received the vaccine) with the possibility of it masquerading under the guise of a similar pox." Their line of evidence and reasoning is summarily stated:
. . . we claim that if the evidence is honestly evaluated that smallpox has actually been prolonged and that the so called protective vaccinations actually put the recipient at risk from . . . the disease itself. Authorities now realize this and the 'top world' countries are making vociferous protests about third world countries continuing use of smallpox vaccination because (a) suddenly it has become recognized that it is an extremely dangerous procedure, (To give some idea of the vaccine's dangers, it was reported--in the late sixties--that annually, roughly 3,000 children were experiencing varying degrees of brain damage due to the smallpox vaccine; and according to G. Kiftel in 1967, smallpox vaccination damaged the hearing of 3,296 children in West Germany, of which 71 became totally deaf.117) and (b) it has now been conquered. The ultimate in ingenuity. . . .118
In turning to recognized textbooks on human virology and vertebrate viruses we find that attention has been given since 1970 to a disease called "monkeypox," which is said to be "clinically indistinguishable from smallpox." Cases of this disease have been found in Zaire, Cameroon, Nigeria, Ivory Coast, Liberia, and Sierra Leone (by May 1983, 101 cases have been reported). It is observed that " . . . the existence of a virus that can cause clinical smallpox is disturbing, and the situation is being closely monitored."119 (For a highly detailed account of the history of this disease and efforts to eradicate it, which further corroborates these observations, see, Razzell P., The Conquest of Smallpox, Caliban Books, United Kingdom, 1977.)
[With media pre-conditioning of the population for biowarfare attacks reaching new levels, a number of inconsistencies are appearing in U.S. government positions. While the CIA web site's analysis of possible Iraqi threats makes no references to smallpox, other recent stories in the major media are sounding dire warnings about it. On Sunday December 15, 2002 HHS Secretary Tommy Thompson appeared on CNN to agree that smallpox vaccines are inherently dangerous and that cabinet members would not be receiving vaccinations even as President Bush promised to be vaccinated with U.S. troops. Thus far, the U.S. military is the only group subject to mandatory vaccinations. And while Thompson and other federal officials insist that there will be no federal order directing mass vaccinations of the American public, MEHPA, a federally sponsored law that could do just that is quietly making inroads in many state legislatures. Recently, Congressman Ron Paul of Texas, a heroic and outspoken protector of civil liberties - himself a medical doctor - has indicated that several portions of the recently enacted Homeland Security bill do, in fact, make it possible for the federal government to order compulsory vaccination of the American public.
MEHPA
Georgetown and Johns Hopkins' Center for Law and the Public Health, the think tank where this state legislation model was created, reports MEHPA-like laws have been passed in 20 states, and 16 state legislatures have introduced measures dealing with public health emergencies caused by a terrorist attack.
States where MEHPA laws have been enacted include: Arizona, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, and Wisconsin. Washington, D.C. has also enacted an emergency health powers law.
State legislatures where MEHPA has been introduced include: California, Connecticut, Idaho, Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Nebraska, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Washington, and Wyoming.
About 500,000 military personnel stationed overseas or likely to be deployed abroad were scheduled to receive the vaccine , followed in the coming months by between 450,000 and 500,000 emergency healthcare workers who would be the first-responders to a smallpox attack. The vaccine is a requirement for the military and voluntary for healthcare workers.
And in other breaking news, one soldier had a serious hangover after a night on leave. Authorities are investigating.
Fearful citizens attacked Dr. John M. Shawg of Lancaster on Jan. 29, 1810, for vaccinating his children against smallpox.
At a time when patients regularly were stuck with poultices and plasters or bled of ill humors, the idea of inoculating a child with a mild disease -- cow pox -- to protect against deadly smallpox was viewed with suspicion on the Ohio frontier.
Most of the community, perhaps mindful of an earlier smallpox outbreak in Marietta, supported the doctor. Five men, though, fired though Shawg's window and broke down his door.
In a report to Gov. Samuel Huntington, citizens reported:
''Jonathan Lynch Took Hold of the wife of Shawg Pulling her about & hauled her out of the house & pushed her with the rifle gun removed her with three children 2 or 3 miles into the country in a could cabin.
''Took hold of Doct Shawg squeezed & Pullet him about his back very much hurt & has received a Rupture.''
The citizens asked Huntington to restore peace and give Shawg a ''Permit to inoculate the small pox the subscribers famelis for the benefit & safety of them.''
Source: The History of the State of Ohio, Vol. II, by Carl F. Wittke
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