I doubt you could also. Vaccination is very, very safe, and does not cause autism*, but the risk is not non-zero. To get a smallpox vaccine, you need to demonstrate a risk greater than the risk from the vaccine. This is why the Army gives it to soldiers going to combat zones, and why, up until about 1980, children who didn’t get it as babies (because they were born after, IIRC, 1971, when the vaccine was no longer routine for infants), were still given it if they were going to travel overseas.
*If vaccines caused autism, I should be autistic. I have had more than my share of boosters. I got extra boosters before traveling overseas when I was 9, I got an extra polio booster in high school, because my data was incomplete after moving from NYC to Indiana, and it was easier just to get the (oral) booster than to try to get my records from my doctor in NY. I got an extra MMR in college because there was a measles outbreak in a dorm, and you had to present documentation of full immunity, or get a shot. I just got the shot, because I had a 48 hour window, and my records were still in NYC. The military gave me DTaP, MMR, and polio again in basic training. I got HepB for a job, and a booster about ten years later. I got an adult DTaP a few years ago, when I found out the CDC recommended them, and I had a small child. I get yearly flu shots as well.
If I recall correctly, the smallpox vaccine was (and still is) the most hazardous of the vaccines you can get. There is a higher rate of side effects, a higher rate of mortality, and because it’s a live virus it can potentially spread to other people (there was a case in Indiana a few years ago where a baby caught the vaccinia virus from his recently vaccinated dad as an example).
That said, for most people getting the anti-smallpox jab has no lingering bad effects, unless you count the small, circular scar.
For the record, the claim is that the massive suite of vaccines given at about age 2 are what triggers autism. Not vaccines in general or accumulations of them across adult years.
It’s still bullshit, but someone is going to read your footnote and make some wrong assumptions that will screw up their later arguments.
The smallpox vaccine is a live virus called vaccinia. So, understandably the complication rate is going to be much higher than most of the killed virus vaccines which can not possibly cause a disease directly.
Vaccinia is a weird little (or I should say big, because it is quite a large virus) guy. Nobody even knows for sure where the hell it came from or what it is.
Is the smallpox vaccine still Vaccinia? Smallpox in the wild is Variola. Vaccinia was originally cowpox, although it was attenuated so many times that it’s different from cowpox in the wild. I think the theory is that it was attenuated through horses.
I was under the impression that Variola was used for smallpox vaccines now-- albeit, “Vaccinia” was the first vaccine ever, hence the word “vaccine.” It comes from the Latin word for cow, “vacca.”
The virus used for the smallpox contains 200 proteins that stimulate an immune reaction. Most vaccines contain fewer than 7. All recommended childhood vaccines put together do not come close to having 200 proteins. The way it worked was basically by giving you a small, localized smallpox skin infection with an attenuated virus. Normal place or transmission of smallpox is respiratory. After being inhaled (by being in airspace with an infected person), the virus traveled to the lymph nodes. The skin infection from the vaccination couldn’t do that.
Rarely, someone could transfer the infection from the vaccine site to a mucous membrane, or an open wound, and get a skin infection over a wider area. It was pretty rare, and it usually required an immune compromised person not dealing effectively with the vaccine touching the mucous membrane or open wound of an unvaccinated person.
At least, IIRC. I’ve read several books, including all of Paul Offit’s books, and that’s what I remember. Most of the books are in storage right now.
Yes. The binomial name is Variolae vaccinae. It’s in the same family as smallpox, but it’s not the same virus.
There were TWO methods of vaccination against smallpox.
In one, you took the material from a pox from someone who had a relatively mild infection (in other words, you were hoping it was the less virulent V. minor), scratched the healthy person’s arm, and smeared the pox-stuff into the cut. If all went well they’d have a “mild” case of smallpox and thereby gain permanent immunity. If things did not go well they person could get a full blown case of smallpox, one of the horrific variations of full smallpox, or, if things really went off the rails, the start of an epidemic outbreak. This method was called “variolation”.
The second method was giving a person a cowpox infection via a similar method. Cowpox is almost always less hazardous than smallpox yet confers immunity. The details differ over the course of time, but that’s basically still what the smallpox vaccine it. That’s the method that eventually became the standard, and was called “vaccination”.
The cowpox can spread from the initial site, which is why smallpox vaccination sites have to be carefully bandaged until they are no longer infectious. People have given themselves “reinfections”, sometimes to nasty locations like lips or eyes.
It is possible for a person with a healthy immune system to suffer a bad reaction to the vaccine, up to and including death.
People with a even a history of eczema or atopic dermatitis are at risk for a nasty side effect called eczema vaccinatum. Basically, instead of being a singular round circle/pox the vaccination reaction spreads over the entire skin. Death is a frequent outcome, as basically the person’s skin dies. Nowadays there has been some success in treating it - the most recent case I’m aware of was a boy in Indiana in 2007, who contracted vaccinia from his recently vaccinated father. Thanks to modern medicine he survived, although with 80% of his skin affected by the disorder he has had to undergo extensive skin grafting.
So, yeah, the side effects are rare but they can be absolutely devastating when the do occur. If smallpox was still a threat in the wild I’m sure there would be a push to develop a safer vaccine. As it is, with only humans affected by smallpox and no outbreaks in over 30 years, there is no ethical way to test a new vaccine.
I remember when smallpox was one of the vaccinations required for school entry (well, I don’t clearly remember, I just remember my mother talking about it-- by the time I entered school, the vaccine was no longer routinely given, and I, born in 1967, was in the last generation to get it as a childhood vaccine), having eczema was a reason to have that particular vaccine waived-- not all vaccines, just smallpox.
The article I linked to above for the cite for there being enough vaccine for all Americans was actually about a new, safer vaccine that they could use to contain an outbreak. Some relevant paragraphs:
This article is incorrect. The standard vaccine is not a weakened cowpox, it is vaccinia. Vaccinia might be from cowpox, but no one knows for sure. MVA is simply a different attenuation of vaccinia.
The name “Vaccinia” comes from the Latin word for cow (“vacca”), and while it’s true that no one knows the provenance of the current virus called Vaccinia, it is probably a descendant of wild cowpox, attenuated, possibly through horses. Doctors have been vaccinating since 1800, and a lot of doctors did their own attenuation. The current Vaccinia may have been used to infect horses at some point, in order to get it to mutate into a less virulent virus-- something doctors understood how to do long before they understood why it worked.
So it’s understandable that people confuse the virus called “Vaccinia” with naturally occurring cowpox.
The TB vaccine I had as a teen has certainly left one, on me and everyone else I know who had the same one. It’s about 1.5 cm across, and has a nerve dead spot in the middle.
In the US, TB has never been a routine vaccine for anyone, not even people traveling overseas, although I did get a TB test. Got one in basic training, and got one yearly as a condition of employment for a particular job.
In the military, a platoon or brigade can be directed to get the vaccine if there is an outbreak, but the military keeps pretty effective control of TB by isolating and treating anyone who has a positive test, and testing everyone on a regular basis.
Pretty much, in the US, the only people vaccinated for TB are healthcare workers who deal with TB patients regularly, researchers who might be accidentally infected, and children who live with people who are TB+, and who cannot be isolated from the people.
So an American is unlikely to be familiar with a TB vaccine scar.
Two of the recovered vials have been tested at the CDC, and it’s viable and growing. That’s about as alive as viruses get.
Given the storage conditions this leaves open the possibility that any other forgotten samples that might be lurking in dark corners of lab storerooms elsewhere could also be viable. Smallpox may not be as contained as we once thought.
Scary stuff! I recall this story about 100 year-old smallpox scabs found in an old book from about 10 years ago. While the disease has not presented itself since eradication in the wild, it seems there could still be tiny pockets of it lurking in a dark recess somewhere, waiting to be accidentally released. :eek:
Unfortunately, the people being weeded out in this scenario would more than likely be innocent children, who should not suffer for the dumbassery of their parents.