Smallpox - a non-hysterical article

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This is from Saturday's edition of the National Post (Toronto). It counters some of the more hysterical commentary recently about Smallpox.

(Bold text is my added emphasis)

Smallpox vaccine risky, expensive
Danger outweighs imminent threat, warns UN body; cost to Canada could hit $107M

Steven Edwards
National Post, with files from the Ottawa Citizen

UNITED NATIONS - The side effects of a mass vaccination for smallpox could kill more people than the toll terrorists would inflict by using the disease in a germ warfare attack, the World Health Organization warned yesterday.

The vaccine, which enabled the eradication of the disease almost 25 years ago, is known to kill one in a million recipients.

If terrorists obtain the virus -- and there is no evidence that they have -- the health organization believes it can be contained by inoculating only those people who have come into contact with it.

The advice against mass vaccination comes after Allan Rock, the Minister of Health, said on Thursday the government is prepared to vaccinate every Canadian if terrorists unleash a smallpox attack in Canada.

Government officials could not give a total price for such a mass inoculation, though it would be "costly, undoubtedly," Dr. Paul Gully, acting director-general for Health Canada's Centre for Infectious Disease Prevention and Control, said yesterday.

Tommy Thompson, the U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary, has asked Congress for US$509-million to pay for up to 250 million doses of the vaccine, expected to be delivered by the end of next year.

Based on those figures, a single dose would cost about $3.34, and 32 million would amount to about $107-million, or 4.6% of Health Canada's $2.3-billion budget. Millions more would be needed to pay for administering the vaccines in the event of an outbreak.

WHO officials believe it is likely the virus will remain beyond terrorists' reach. Only two known samples remain -- one in the United States and one in Russia.

The health organization had wanted the stocks to be destroyed by the end of last year, but the United States resisted, citing the need to keep stocks for vaccine research.

WHO teams have visited both facilities in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, and there were no signs of security breaches, said David Heymann, the organization's head of communicable diseases and a leading participant in the eradication of the illness a generation ago.

However, the Soviet Union produced smallpox for its biological weapons program in the 1980s, and bioterrorism experts fear some may have spread to terrorist-sponsoring countries.

"Nobody is at risk today because there is no hint of smallpox at the moment," Mr. Heymann said. "Though we vaccinated before, the risk ratio has changed."

In a major report last month, WHO lists 44 viruses, bacteria, fungi and protozoa that terrorists could use to kill.

Although smallpox and anthrax are among 11 diseases most feared as weapons, so too are botulism, which is acute food poisoning, and the plague.

WHO also reported last month that governments "had stockpiled or otherwise weaponized" at least 25 toxic chemicals since 1946.

The recent anthrax attacks in the United States have raised concerns about the reappearance of smallpox, which once killed about three million people a year worldwide.

The health organization was central in the disease's eradication, administering a vaccine containing a virus called vaccinia. For some people, the vaccine had serious and sometimes fatal side effects.

"The risk of adverse effects is sufficiently high that mass vaccination is not warranted if there is no or little real risk of exposure," the warning adds.

The risks from the vaccine, especially for the very young, old and people with suppressed immune systems, include skin rashes, painful boils and encephalitis.

Should smallpox cases appear, a better use of the vaccine would be to inoculate people surrounding the victims, the health organization advises.

Smallpox victims become infectious after symptoms of high fever, fatigue and a rash appear, said Dick Thompson, a spokesman at the headquarters of the United Nations agency in Geneva. This occurs seven to 17 days after the person initially catches the disease. "By that time, they are usually very sick, and in bed, so the only people they are infecting are people who are caring for them in the home or in hospital."

Because the vaccine is effective in people in the first four days of contagion, doctors can create what Mr. Thompson described as a "firewall of protection."

A terrorist attack involving a few infected people would be unlikely to cause a new epidemic, WHO believes.

"Even when natural smallpox occurred, there were never big outbreaks, for example in schools among students," Mr. Thompson said. "At the time of becoming infectious, people are not out there running around. This disease doesn't spread like measles or chicken pox."

Smallpox, which cannot be treated directly, kills 30% of its victims.

-- Johnny Canuck (j_canuck@hotmail.com), October 27, 2001

Answers

A good site for some rational commentary on the threat of bio- terrorism is

www.junkscience.com

-- Johnny Canuck (j_canuck@hotmail.com), October 27, 2001.


Why do I get the feeling that clown Tommy Thompson is still playing his game of "cover my ass"? The fact that now he's got another Thompson to help spread the bullshit around doesn't help, they have absolutely no credibility in my view.

If terrorists decide to use smallpox we are going to be fucked in so many ways it will make 911 look like a picnic. We have been paying big bucks for our government "officials" to monitor and eliminate these types of threats. Instead, they have been filling their pockets and jerking themselves off, so the people will suffer because of their negligence.

-- ("major league assholes" @ spreading more bullshit. "bigtime"), October 28, 2001.


good article, thanks

-- po boy (po@boy.sandwich), October 28, 2001.

Have no fear about small pox because it is a non-issue. Once you contract the disease you are only sick for awhile. The worst part is the scabs. These can be picked off one a time. But don't pick twice or you may bleed to death. But the key is do not contract the disease. Stay home forever!

-- Scab Picker (beenpicking@for.years), October 28, 2001.

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