June 22, 2002 Smallpox Proposal Raises Ethical Issues By LAWRENCE K. ALTMAN TLANTA, June 21 — The decision by a government advisory panel to recommend smallpox vaccination for about 15,000 health care and law enforcement workers raises logistical and ethical issues involving not just the people who will get the vaccine but also those who will come in contact with them. If experience from the time when smallpox vaccine was routinely administered to the public is a guide, doctors say, some of the 15,000 "first responders" who receive the vaccine may suffer serious — potentially even deadly — complications. Steps...