Please forgive me if this is a really stupid question but where do they get the smallpox vaccine from? Are they still making it? Is it mandatory? Do people in the military ever get actual smallpox? The disease was eliminated in the late 1970’s if I remember correctly. Have they refined the process since? Because the smallpox vaccine was very dangerous. Of all the vaccines ever dreamed up that one really scares me. Granted smallpox scares any normal person even more but that vaccine is rather dangerous.
Most people exposed to it are able to fully overcome the bacteria.
Some people are only partially successful- they have no symptoms but may have some live TB bacteria in their bodies. They are not infectious, and have normal Chest Xrays. They are classed as having Latent TB. The only sign of this is a positive Mantoux or Heaf test.
Some people are unable to overcome the bacteria at all.
They have the symptoms of TB (cough, sweats, weight loss etc), chest Xray changes and are infectious.
The risk is that about 10% of people with Latent TB will develop active TB and become unwell and infectious at a later point in their life should their immune system weaken (due to HIV, age, cancer, chemotherapy etc).
It is important to find out whether someone has active or latent TB before treating them- as active TB requires more medications for a longer period of time to be adequately treated.
Of course, here in Ireland we also have the other group of people- the" burned out" TB- generally very elderly people with abnormal chest xrays who had TB many years ago, but who have overcome it by themselves and aren’t unwell or infectious any longer. We test them to make sure they don’t have active TB, and then treat them only if they want it.
Most don’t.
But we’re talking about people over 75 here- the chances of dying of re-activated TB are generally much less than the chance of dying from whatever reason made us give them the chest Xray in the first place…
Smallpox vaccine as a rule isn’t dangerous. You might be thinking of anthrax.
Google Smallpox and Edward Jenner. Jenner was a physician who overheard the maids talking about coxpox, a rather non-threatening disease that infected cattle, and was often transmitted to the working class. The maids were sharing old wives’ tales that people who had had cowpox never suffered from smallpox. Bottom line, Dr Jenner began inoculating his patients with cowpox, and thus discovered a treatment that stopped the epidemic smallpox.
FYI, there are MANY “pox” diseases throughout the world. Some are minor, some are deadly. Smallpox was spread through exploration and travel, and it killed many and badly disfigured any who survived the sickness. Jenner’s discovery was truly a step in the direction of modern preventative medicine.
~VOW