Did anyone know about this?

[covert]

This smallpox news article seems a bit scary, how does it seem to you?,
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20021120-2387.htm

[covert]

oops, I meant this article about smallpox, the other one I put up by mistake. Here is the correct one,
http://www.accessatlanta.com/ajc/news/1102/20cdcpolitics.html

[Ed Edwards]

8) In the early 50s, when i got a smallpox vaccine,
I didn't know the odds.

Odds are:
3 in a million will die.
6 in a million will be disabled for life
17 will need additional treatment
999,997 will never get smallpox

These odds seem very good.
I wonder if i need a booster shot?

[Julie]

Ed-

The concept of vaccination as commonly understood is that it safeguards the individual from disease. That is not true purpose of vaccination, merely a side benefit.

Vaccination is to secure the populace from disease in order to ensure socio-economic stability. It works effectively only if the majority of the populace is vaccinated because the immunization process does not work as well on full-blown exposure to a diease. It may lessen the severity of the attack, but not necessarily completely protect you.

So the idea is that the spread of a disease is contained by vaccination amongst a populace and exposure is confined to lessening or nil cross infection. The American populace will have to be convinced that smallpox vaccination is a war effort not a personal insurance policy because the use of the vaccine is not negligable. Some people may die. Some people may be disabled.

Anyway that's my .02

And thanks for making us welcome here folks. :)

[covert]

:-\
After reading the article three times, about the smallpox vaccinations, I came away with two choices, 1. Get the vaccine and possibly die, or, 2. Don't get the vaccine, and die anyway. I guess I'll take choice #1.

[jeny]

I don't know if I really want to take it or not. But it appears as if we will not have a choice. That's what makes me so mad, we don't have a choice. >:( Ok for me, ok for my husband, not so blase about giving it to my nine month old if you know what I mean.

[tileman]

Yeah....really

[jeny]

Furthermore, those "odd" that Ed posted above, it seems like I've heard that they were a lot worse. I don't remember where though.. I'll have to look it up I guess...

[jeny]

Just read here that the vaccine is effective post exposure. That's interesting and promising..

http://www.vaccinesafety.edu/smallpox.htm

Still looking for more info on the side effects

[jeny]

http://www.rense.com/general29/sucs.htm

Here's some more information. Apparently, it's more complicated than I thought. The jist I get from the article is that back in the 60's, people who came down with the virus were not recently vaccinated, but people who caught the disease from others who were recently vaccinated.

People who were vaccinated prior to 1972 has less of a chance of coming down with it than those of us youngsters who were not born yet! :D

I'm still looking!

[Jethro Tull]

The numbers posted above are in the same range I have seen previously. I was also vaccinated in 1959. While my immunity may have worn off, the fact that I had no bad reaction back then makes a reaction now almost impossible, although the vaccine is slighty modified.

Jeny ~ If you and your husband take it first and don't have any reaction, your child shouldn't, either. But I think they don't like to vaccinate babies, anyway.

[jeny]

Jeny ~ If you and your husband take it first and don't have any reaction, your child shouldn't, either. But I think they don't like to vaccinate babies, anyway.


I would think if I got the vaccine, she would get the antibodies in my breastmilk, which is how it works with other viruses. Pretty good system actually.

A few months ago, there was a big to do in the news about West Nile Virus being found in a mother's breastmilk, and then in the baby. However, it was antibody agents found in the baby, and the baby never came down with it, even though the mother was hospitilized for it.

[Slipped Mickey]

Ed-

The concept of vaccination as commonly understood is that it safeguards the individual from disease. That is not true purpose of vaccination, merely a side benefit.

Vaccination is to secure the populace from disease in order to ensure socio-economic stability. It works effectively only if the majority of the populace is vaccinated because the immunization process does not work as well on full-blown exposure to a diease. It may lessen the severity of the attack, but not necessarily completely protect you.

So the idea is that the spread of a disease is contained by vaccination amongst a populace and exposure is confined to lessening or nil cross infection. The American populace will have to be convinced that smallpox vaccination is a war effort not a personal insurance policy because the use of the vaccine is not negligable. Some people may die. Some people may be disabled.

Anyway that's my .02

And thanks for making us welcome here folks. :)


Whoa! That's the best version I've heard yet. Scary no matter how you look at it.

[wendy]

There is a book out by Richard Preston (who wrote the Hot Zone) called The Demon in the Freezer. It ought to scare the pants off anyone who thinks you can just innoculate health care workers and "protect" the population. If someone with smallpox lesions presented themselves at a hospital emergency room, there is a very good chance that a large portion of the hospital would become "infected". Those people could NOT be allowed to leave until it became clear they were not infected. If smallpox hit a city, they would have to quarantine the entire city until it burned itself out.

The risks of the vaccine are nothing compared to the risk of smallpox in the population.

[Jethro Tull]

Even scarier is the fact that by the time the infected person got to a hospital, they would have had contact with many unvaccinated people outside. The virus is airborne; coughing on the subway on the way to the doctor could infect hundreds.

The concept of "ring containment" is woefully inadequate. In today's mobile society, if just one of those infected subway passengers in NYC got on a plane to Chicago . . . well, you get the idea.

Vaccination, of course, protects both individuals and populations. I assure you that the medical researchers who discovered and perfected various vaccines were concerned with the health of the public, not the economy. Economic benefits of mass vaccination are a side benefit.

Jeny ~ I'm not a doctor, but if breast-feeding by a vaccinated mother could immunize her child from smallpox, they wouldn't have had to vaccinate millions of us up through the 1970s. But they did, and the little skin reaction almost all of us had at the site shows that we did not have immunity.

[covert]

:-[
That smallpox is some nasty stuff, My brother e-mailed me some pictures of infected people he got off of the internet, it looked terrible. Looks almost like your skin gets covered with raised, small blisters; those pictures looked really nasty. I just hope the side-effects aren't as bad as I have been reading about.