Note particularly the section which says that kids could be pulling off their bandages and infecting everyone willy-nilly.
You do remember hundreds of people dropping dead in the 20th century because all those evil vaccinated children killed them, don’t you?
Seriously, folks, the GD question here is: What’s behind the smallpox vaccine debate?
Is the smallpox vaccine somehow more dangerous than before? Why are they now saying don’t give it to kids when in the past it was only given to kids?
Are they afraid of multi-million dollar lawsuits arising from the deaths of the 15 people who die from them (who presumably wouldn’t have sued in 1960?)
Personally, if we get a bio-attack I’m convinced it will be from something no one has thought to prepare against. (Like anthrax being sent through the mail). After all, that’s kind of the point. But I digress.
When natural small pox was around, how would you have told those with vaccine induced pox from those who had natural disease? You just knew that the total numbers were dropping. Dramatically.
Which is one thing that was different then, there was a real quantifiable threat of dieing from small pox. Made tolerating some risk a reasonable thing to do. Currently there is no real risk … there is the threat of a threat. Accept “15 or so deaths” and at least 50 or so serious complications/1,000,000 population, for no identifiable real benefit? And realistically if the baddies had it, don’t you think they’d have used it by now?
Another thing that is different: us. Our population is different. Lots more immunosuppressed hanging around alive, whether they’re s/p transplant, or on cancer chemotherapy, or with HIV. Also, for reasons that are the subject of much study, we also have many more who are immunologically hypersensitive … eczema, asthma, etc. … all of whom are also at greater risk for vaccine complications whether directly vaccinated or secondarily exposed. Some fear that the complication rate might be much higher than published numbers suggest.
I never understood why ‘immune compromised’ frequently appears in the vaccination debates. I understand and sympathise that a segment of our population is rather more at risk to various diseases then the rest of us.
But why would that stop the gov’t from vaccinating us? Just don’t vaccinate the people at risk (unless they choose to be vaccinated, where feasible), and voila! end of problem. The majority of the population is safe, thus decreasing the chances that such an attack would be carried out in the first place, among other benifits.
But it isn’t end of problem. Small pox vaccination is a live virus that works by causing an attenuated form of the disease* which can be contagious even to those not directly vaccinated. This secondary exposure has benefits - increasing the rates of those protected beyond the numbers given shots - but also reduces the ability to limit exposure of those who would be at greater risk.
*Trivial nerdy aside - small pox immunization is the model “vaccine.” Jenner realized that cow pox was similar enough to small pox, that those intentionally infected with that less severe cousin were at much reduced risk for the more severe small pox. Cow pox was called vaccina, hence the word vaccination for this sort of protection. Vaccina comes from the Latin vaca for cow and shares its root with vaquero, Spanish for cowhand, which was bastardized to buckeroo in English, which brings us back to Texas and Dubya. Scary aint it?
Yes, exactly so. Your right to protect yourself does not include a right to put others at risk in the process without their consent.
More to the point, if the overall risk/cost to the society as a whole of vaccination is greater than the benefit, then mass vaccination is not a good idea.
Isn’t the problem really that they’re going to be exposing 30 years worth of unvaccinated people to the diease if anyone contracts it through the vaccine? According to the CDC the fatality rate amongst the unvaccinated is 30% so the danger is quite high if some people do get ill from the vaccine. When they did it all along way back when the only people who hadn’t had it at least once were those who were deemed “too young.” Now you have millions of people with no protection to it whatsoever because they haven’t administered it since 1972. The “most at risk” group doesn’t usually make up such a huge precentage of the population.
My understanding, and I only heard this on the radio, is that the smallpox vaccine is the exact same formula that was used so many years ago. The level of risk from taking the vaccine is the same as ever, but is higher than the level that would be tolerated from a newly developed vaccine.
Since the risk is considered too high, they’re making vaccinations voluntary for the general public.
Cheesy,
The risk is considered higher because while the formulation is the same, we are not. But you are right in that previously acceptable levels of complications are not acceptable by today’s standards.
Elfkin,
Nope, it is an atteneuated virus. The risk of a healthy person contracting the full blown disease from incidental exposure to a vaccine receipient is very low.
So- soccer moms have no right to drive huge, unsafe to other vehicles, smog belching SUV’s just to protect their “precious darlings”? :eek: (Note that the new H2 is the hottest new car, just for this stupid, selfich & WRONG reason". Good idea.
Admittedly overstated. Although I’d love to see those gas guzzling smog belching threats to me in my little ole Honda Civic off the road! More precisely it should be stated that your right to protect yourself is restrained by the rights of others to not be put at risk without consent. Which was the point of the overall risk/cost vs. benefit to the society as a whole comment that followed.
That’s for people who are infected by smallpox , the vaccine in question does NOT contain smallpox virus (variola). The problems with the vaccine would be infection with a sort of mutant cowpox or a bad immune-reaction.
BTW, US military personnel got smallpox vaccinations as late as 1990, while the general population stopped having them in 1972 IIRC. Of course, the initial vaccination was given upon arrival at the Basic Training station, so you were essentially in a segregated environment during the period of risk of reaction or cross-infection.
