Symptoms: Aching puss-filled sores. Inflamed and tender glands. A low to mid-range fever. Toxic or allergic rashes. Advanced tissue destruction. Inflammation of the brain. Death. Who could be so calculating as to unleash this biological horror on the American people? Saddam Hussein? Osama bin Laden? Kim Jong Il? Would you believe, George W. Bush? For, dear reader, these are not the symptoms of Anthrax, Bubonic Plague or Cooties, but rather a list of possible side effects of the Smallpox vaccine. Yet, according to a poll conducted by ABCNEWS, 50 percent of American citizens would still get the shot if and when it became available. In its time, smallpox was regarded as one of the deadliest diseases in human history, killing roughly one-third of those infected. For thousands of years, outbreaks of smallpox have occasionally occurred in western society, running virtually unchecked through centers of human habitation. However, through a successful and massive immunization program, smallpox was effectively eradicated from the earth over 25 years ago. The last recorded US case was in 1949 and the last naturally occurring case in the world was in Somalia in 1977. In 1980, in what was hailed as one of the seminal medical accomplishments of the 20th century, the World Health Organization (WHO) officially declared smallpox destroyed. Recent threats of a terrorist attack using stocks of this once-feared disease must be acknowledged, but any perceived benefit from the gross vaccination of our citizenry must be weighed against the inevitable, and occasionally serious side effects of the vaccine itself. The truth about the small pox vaccine In 1774, English farmer Benjamin Jesty administered the first known smallpox vaccination when he exposed his wife and sons to cowpox by injecting the infected pus from the udder of a cow into their arms. Fundamentally, the vaccine has changed little over the years. Unlike most vaccines, which use a weakened or dead germ of the disease in question, the smallpox immunization shot is literally a vaccination; the subject is injected and infected with the live virus vaccinia, or cowpox, a mild relative of smallpox. In an interview with USAToday, William Schaffner, head of the Preventive Medicine department at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville explained, ”If we had a smallpox vaccine that was akin to our routine tetanus vaccine, we would have been finished by now. We would have vaccinated the country.” The injection is administered via a bifurcated (two-pronged) needle, which, after being dipped into the vaccine solution, is poked in to surface of the upper arm approximately fifteen times in a few seconds. If all goes smoothly, in the next three to four days, the area around the inoculation will form into a bump, which quickly becomes reddened, irritated and uncomfortable. Approximately one week after the vaccine, the reddened bump develops into a blister, fills with puss, and begins to drain. In the second week, the drained blister dries into a scab, which then falls off seven to ten days later. Throughout this three-week process, the subject may experience a low to mid range fever, a persistent rash and aching in their head, joints and extremities. These are the “normal” side effects for the vaccination process. Until the vaccination site reaches the final scab stage, the wound is highly contagious both to the subject and to anyone with whom the subject comes contact. As such, improper treatment or infrequent changing of the wound’s dressing can lead to inadvertent inoculation of other sites on the subject’s body, most frequently the face, eyelids, mouth and nose. Any site exposed, will progress through the same stages of development as the primary site, requiring the same levels of precaution and treatment as the initial lesion. According to the Centers for Disease Control website, www.bt.cdc.gov, about one person in every 20,000 to 72,000 will “experience potentially life-threatening reactions to the vaccine.” Included in this list of life-threatening reactions are: * Eczema vaccinatum – Serious skin rashes caused by widespread infection of the skin in people with skin conditions such as eczema or atopic dermatitis. * Progressive vaccinia (or vaccinia necrosum) – Ongoing infection of skin with tissue destruction frequently leading to death. * Postvaccinal encephalitis – Inflammation of the brain. While the CDC estimates that only one person in 500,000 to 1,000,000 will die from these serious complications, they admit that those figures are based on past data, and that adverse reaction rates today will likely be higher than in the 1960’s, due in part to the fact that regular childhood vaccination of smallpox stopped in 1972. America’s smallpox response plan After the attacks of September 11, 2001, attitudes toward a possible terrorist attack on American soil using stocks of diseases like anthrax and smallpox quickly transformed from improbable to impending. The Bush administration’s response to this new climate of impending biological doom, is an aggressive inoculation program to safeguard the American people against the threat of smallpox. Since spring of 2002, the US government has stockpiled enough smallpox vaccine to inoculate the population of the country in its entirety. The prevention program began last month with mandatory vaccinations for 500,000 men and women in the US military. Over the next few months, the administration plans to voluntarily vaccinate over 10 million police, fire, health care and emergency response personnel, beginning with 440,000 health care workers deemed “frontline” or “first responders.” Although the administration expects the vaccine to become widely available to the general public sometime next year, the federal government is not currently advising massive mandatory vaccinations. But with a vaccine that is proven effective up to three days after initial exposure, and no confirmed cases in the past 25 years, slow and cautious progress is anticipated. Meanwhile the medical community has other pressing concerns. “We have many more pressing public health needs than to get a few people vaccinated against smallpox,” says Kim Thorburn, the public health officer for Spokane, Wash. “Right now, we’ve got influenza that just hit.
Plymouth State University
Thursday, June 26, 2025