That's a question many people are asking after President Bush on Friday ordered members of the military serving in high-risk areas to be vaccinated against smallpox and said he will be inoculated as well. But he said that for most people, the risk of bioterrorism is too small to warrant vaccinations.

Bush's decision, delayed for months while the federal government weighed the risks of the smallpox vaccine, has sharpened the public health focus on all adult vaccinations. The question of whether healthy adults should get preventive shots, and when, extends to the vaccines for influenza, pneumonia, meningitis, tetanus and hepatitis B, as well as two vaccines for people who aren't sure whether they had the diseases or shots in childhood: chickenpox and measles, mumps and rubella (MMR).

Other immunizations sometimes debated are those for Lyme disease, although that vaccine is no longer available in the United States, and anthrax, which has been used primarily in the military and is not available to the general public.

Most health officials say that people should seriously consider the risks before being vaccinated for smallpox but advocate getting other recommended adult vaccinations.

Smallpox was eradicated in 1980, but government officials worry that some of the virus may have fallen into the hands of terrorists. One-third of those infected in a smallpox outbreak could die. But smallpox vaccination also poses serious risks. One to two of every million people vaccinated for smallpox will die from the vaccination, and many more will suffer serious reactions, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Some experts say those figures are actually higher, because today's population includes more people with immune deficiencies caused by the AIDS virus, cancer chemotherapy and other factors than when smallpox vaccinations were last routinely administered decades ago.

"A smallpox outbreak is only a theoretical risk, but the risks of the vaccine are real," said Dr. Carlos del Rio, chief of medicine at Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta and an associate professor of infectious diseases at Emory University. "We should use this concern about smallpox as an opportunity to think about getting vaccinated against the diseases we may actually get, like influenza and pneumonia."

Others are concerned that by getting vaccinations, even those considered routine, people are subjecting themselves to more and more antibodies without knowing whether interactions among various vaccines can cause damage.

The CDC studies each vaccine's side effects, but few researchers have looked at their aggregate effects, partly because widespread use of some vaccines is relatively new.

Some concerned parents maintain that childhood vaccinations are linked with certain adverse health outcomes, though most scientists deny it. Examples include alleged links between the MMR vaccine and autism and between the diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis vaccine and sudden infant death syndrome.

Some groups are now speaking out on adult vaccines, too.

"We have not done a good enough job of evaluating the potential long-term effects of using vaccines to prevent all of these communicable diseases," said Barbara Loe Fisher, president of the National Vaccine Information Center, based in Virginia. Fisher questions why, for example, nearly all age groups are being encouraged to get the influenza vaccine, when it was initially targeted to the elderly, who are most at risk for flu.

"It seems like we've gotten into the pattern that more is better when it comes to vaccines, but the public health officials never take a step back and ask if that is wise," Fisher said. "The companies that make the vaccine put their time and money into it and want to have it used."

The flu vaccine was initially directed at the elderly because the supply was limited, del Rio said. He said there are no proven risks from receiving several different vaccines.

"Antibodies are good," del Rio said. "Most of these vaccines have been around a long time."

Joan Hart of Marietta wasn't worried about side effects when she received a smallpox vaccination last month as part of a study by Serologicals Inc. of Smyrna. The company is drawing blood plasma from recently vaccinated people to use in making a treatment for vaccine reactions.

"I'm not a skittish type of person, so it didn't bother me," said Hart, 53, a hairstylist.

She had some redness on her arm after the vaccination but no other side effects, she said. Because the pustule that forms around the vaccination site can be contagious, she was told not to be near pregnant women or young children.

"I was supposed to have Thanksgiving dinner with my sister and her pregnant daughter in Birmingham, but I didn't go," Hart said. "But that was really the only issue."

Randell Baker, a billing coordinator at the Emory University School of Medicine, got an influenza shot last month, as he has in most recent years.

"I tried it one year and still got the flu, but it wasn't as bad as before," said Baker, 38. "Then I stopped doing it, and I got the flu worse. So I just started doing it every year."

If the smallpox vaccine is offered to the general public, Baker said he'll probably get it.

"I'd want to be protected," he said. "But a lot of it would depend on what the world situation is at the time."