New Fight for an Old Warrior

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http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/14/health/14HEND.html?tntemail1

New Fight for an Old Warrior

By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG

WASHINGTON, Dec. 13 — The old smallpox warrior sat quietly in the audience today, his blue briefing book in his lap, wire-rimmed glasses resting on ruddy cheeks, as President Bush announced his long-awaited decision on who should get the smallpox vaccine. For Dr. Donald A. Henderson, it was a moment tinged with sadness.

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Dr. Henderson is the man who made the world safe from smallpox. From 1966 to 1977, he ran the worldwide effort to wipe out the disease. He oversaw countless public health workers who toiled under the most grueling conditions, living in villages without water or electricity and slipping in and out of war-torn nations to vaccinate people exposed to the virus, until the disease was no longer a threat.

Smallpox was declared officially eradicated in 1980, but it has continued to haunt Dr. Henderson. Now 74, he works as a bioterrorism adviser to Tommy G. Thompson, the secretary of health and human services, which is why he was in the audience today for Mr. Bush's announcement at the White House.

He did not speak during the program, but said in an interview that he fully supported the president's decision to order vaccinations for the military and to offer the vaccine to health workers and emergency personnel. Still, Dr. Henderson could not help but grit his teeth at the thought that his old foe, smallpox, might not be vanquished after all.

"I feel very — what should we say? — dispirited," he said, moments before the president's announcement. "Here we are, regressing to defend against something we thought was permanently defeated. We shouldn't have to be doing this."


 

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