Many people around my office have the scar and say they were vaccinated for smallpox.
But doesn’t polio or TB vaccine ALSO leave a scar.
I swear a lot of my relatives had a scar on their upper arms (the girls had it on the inside of the arm in case they wanted to go to prom - no sleeves on dresses you know) and I doubt they had the smallpox vaccine.
Does either of these or both leave a scar. If so how do you differentiate between the two?
You got a vaccination for tuberculosis? I don’t think there is such a thing yet.
People are working on one, for example http://www.sequellafoundation.org/core.asp
I don’t think any other vaccination used the same type of equipment as they used to use for smallpox.
If we all have to get smallpox vaccines again (and I really hope we don’t have to), then we should all just get a shot with a regular old needle.
Hopefully, someone will do better research on this answer, because I’m too lazy.
Back in the 60’s, polio shots were administered that left a scar. This scar is usually on the left arm and is approximately (pulls up shirt sleeve) 3/4 of an inch in diameter and located about 3 inches below the shoulder joint. As I recall, polio shots were pretty much mandatory at that time, so many people who were in school in the 60’s have them (I’m 39).
Later, an oral vaccine for polio was developed that involved a pink liquid placed on a sugar cube. I can remember taking this, and then, when we went to drug and alcohol class a couple of years later, hearing about LSD on sugar cubes. Was I part of a government experiment? It would explain some things.
So at some time after the oral polio vaccine was invented, the shots should no longer have been given. People of a certain age should not have the polio shot scar. I’ll be looking at everyone younger than me the next time I go to the gym. Or looking at different body parts.
Can’t help you on the smallpox vaccine.
Note 1: Sometimes in modern movies which were set back in the 20, 30, 40’s, you will see people with the polio shot scar. It’s a goof, because there was no polio vaccine back then.
Note 2: DPT shots do not cause autism. The New England Journal of Medicine recently had an article on this. Previous studies were based on bad science. I only mention this because a. I looked up DPT shots to see if the P was polio (pertussis, which I remember to be “whooping cough”), b. I get the DPT question a lot professionally, since I work with kids with autism.
Smallpox was stamped out globally by 1980, and vaccination stopped everywhere in the world. In 1972, the U.S. decided to stop routinely vaccinating its citizens, because many people were experiencing side effects, while they had almost no risk of getting smallpox. Many people over age 30 have a vaccination scar. Vaccination consists of introducing the virus into the top layers of the skin. Over the following few days, a blister forms at the site of vaccination (usually the upper arm). The arm is sore, and there is fever. Vaccination has been shown to wear off in most people after 10 years but may last longer if the person has been successfully vaccinated on multiple occasions.
I have a scar on my left arm from a Tuberculosis innoculation when I was four. My grandfather had TB, and every member of my family had to be immunized because of that. That’s also why I know for sure that it was for TB.
My parents say that when they were in school everyone was immunized against TB, which nearly wiped out the disease. However, by the time I reached school age TB was so rare that they stopped giving shots for it. That’s why my brother and I are rare in our age group - none of our classmates ever had this shot.
The scar is round and about the size of the tip of my finger. For the record, I was born in 1976, so I had the shot around 1980. I know for sure that my grandfather didn’t have smallpox, and that his lungs were badly damaged by the TB. He was a heavy smoker and an alcoholic, which meant that he was very run down. The only other member of the family to be affected was a second cousin aged about 6 - he’d always been a sickly child and he caught TB from my grandfather. Both survived.
There is a TB vaccine, but it’s not really all that effective, plus if you’ve been vaccinated, you show up as positive on the TB skin test. It’s used quite a bit in Europe, but not in the US.
Follow up:
Just called my mother to ask. She confirmed that it was around about 1980, that my grandfather had TB and that’s why we had shots. Also, we all had to be tested for TB before having shots. My grandfather, second cousin and father all tested positive. Grandfather and cousin were confirmed cases, but though my father tested positive, he didn’t have TB. This was thought to be related to the innoculation from when he was at school rather than because of my grandfather, and though he had to have regular chest x-rays for a few years to make sure he didn’t develop TB, he was fine. Everyone else who tested negative was immunised as a precaution.
There are two types of polio vaccine - the inactivated vaccine, and the live virus vaccine. The inactivated vaccine contains killed virus particles, and is injected intramuscularly. The live vaccine contains attenuated virus, which must be ingested to be effective - it’s generally given on a sugar cube. Neither polio vaccine leaves a scar.
Vaccination for tuberculosis involves injections of a weakened live mycobacterium called BCG. I don’t know if it can cause a scar, but BCG is rarely administered in the U.S. because it doesn’t offer much protection from tuberculosis, and anyone who receives the immunization will have a positive TB skin test for the rest of their life, which makes screening for asymptomatic tuberculosis infection more difficult. The vaccine is often administered in other parts of the world where TB is more common and even a little protection may be beneficial. Bottom line is that if a person was born and raised in the U.S., they have almost certainly never been vaccinated against tuberculosis.
The smallpox vaccine was administered in the U.S until about 1972, and as a previous poster stated, it involves injection of a poxvirus (vaccinia) into the skin, where it grows and causes a local skin eruption that DOES result in a scar. So if you see a scar (about the size of a dime) on the upper arm of a person who was born prior to 1972 and was raised in the U.S., you can be nearly 100% certain that you are looking at a smallpox vaccination scar. It was the only vaccine in common use in the developed world that caused scarring.
Let me try to clear up a few things here.
Smallpox vaccine: immunization results in a permanent scar.
TB “vaccine” (AKA BCG): results in a permanent scar. FWIW, BCG is used to vaccinate children in parts of the world where TB is endemic. It doesn’t prevent “run of the mill” pulmonary TB, but reduces the incidence of fulminant disseminated TB in infants and toddlers. Because of the relative ineffectiveness of BCG and because it interferes with TB exposure monitoring (makes the recipients PPD positive for about 10 years), it is not used in places with low TB rates (like the US).
Polio Vaccine (Salk vaccine, IPV, the shot): Does not cause scarring. Perhaps some older formulation did, I don’t know. However, I’d be surprised. The smallpox and TB vaccines both consist of live (though not especially virulent) organisms. Scarring results secondary to a protracted host response to the live organisms. The polio shot has always consisted of dead virus. I doubt it ever left a scar (but I’m sure somebody will be in here soon to show me wrong).
Also, cazzle, I can’t tell from your story whether you received appropriate treatment after your TB exposure. It sounds as if you go a TB test (PPD) which returned as negative. In the US, if that was the case, it should have been followed up with another test in 2-3 months. With a second negative test, no further treatment or monitoring would be necessary. In individuals under 35 y.o. with proven TB exposure (a positive PPD, without recent BCG vaccination) the recommendation is to take a single anti-TB drug (INH) for 6-9 months depending on age and immune status. This prophylactic regimen reduces the lifetime rist of developing pulmonary TB from 5% to 0.5%. In exposed individuals over 35, taking INH poses too great a risk of liver damage, and so these folks are followed by serial chest X-rays and clinical exams. I’ve never heard of vaccinating anyone with proven (PPD +) or suspected TB exposure.
On preview: @@#$%!!! Gotta learn to type faster!!
I guess to answer my question, just because you have a scar that doesn’t mean it is a smallpox vaccination. Apparently both TB and Polio can leave a scar too.
Do they look different?
The scars that is.
My BCG scar is radically different from my smallpox scar. When I was vaccinated against smallpox, the vaccine wasn’t given via a standard hypodermic syringe (the BCG vaccine was) - it was administered by something more like a tattoo gun.
My smallpox vaccine scar, and most of those I’ve seen on other people, is lightly indented. You can only notice my BCG vaccination scar if I’m suntanned.
Sounds more like a smallpox scar to me.
Polio shots were administered by a syringe, which might leave a small dot of a scar, but smallpox vaccines always leave that circular scar.
I doubt a new formulation for smallpox will be scarless - the vaccine leaves an actual “pox” at the point of injection. If that’s how bad the vaccine scars are, imagine how nasty from the actual disease!
There is a TB vaccine, but it’s not used much in Europe. If you’ve ever had it the TB skin test will come up positive whether you have TB in you or not.