►March 2, 2004 - Diluted
Smallpox Vaccine Dose Equally Effective - Central News Agency via
www.immunizationinfo.org
(abstract)
►March 2, 2004 - New
Acambis CEO Announces Four-Fold Increase in Profits - press release -
Acambis plc via PRNewswire-FirstCall via Yahoo! - "In developing new vaccines
against infectious diseases, Acambis is aiming to maximise the value of its
products by retaining rights to those vaccines for as long as possible. This
means not only developing, clinically testing and licensing the vaccines but
also, where possible, manufacturing, selling and distributing the product
ourselves...The first of these primarily involves the development of our two key
franchises: the smallpox vaccine franchise; and the travel vaccines franchise."
►March 15, 2004 -
Looking Back at Smallpox - journal article
(Clinical Infectious Diseases) - "Examinationof clinical
variants suggeststhat severity of illnesswas usually
determined byhost responses during theincubation period.
Control ofviral replication was aidedby early
postexposure vaccinationand might be strengthenedby
additional immunological interventions."
►March 2, 2004 -
Vaccinated GIs spread infections - Fayetteville (N.C.) Observer - "Thirty
people in the military have transferred infections to other people after being
vaccinated for smallpox, according to the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention."
►Military
Vaccine Dangers - CBS News Video
February 23-29, 2004
►February 27, 2004 -
Smallpox: Child Killer - The Korea Times - "Maximillian
Taubles came to Seoul in early February 1886 over the muddy path that served as
the road from Chemulpo to Seoul...The first impressions of Korea must have
shocked him. Just outside of Seoul he was surprised to see groups of corpses,
most of them children, unburied and exposed to the elements. Feral dogs roamed
among them eating parts of the partially frozen bodies."
Comment: That's all well and good. But what if
having immunity to HIV doesn't really mean much? What if HIV has nothing
to do with AIDS, as some believe?
►February 17, 2004 -
Mass Vaccination Not Needed to Contain Smallpox Outbreak, Researchers Say -
Nuclear Threat Initiative - "Conducting a mass vaccination
against smallpox in the United States could save some lives in the event of an
outbreak, but the risks of vaccine side effects would outweigh most benefits,
researchers announced Friday (see
GSN, Jan. 30)."
►February 19, 2004 -
Russian
'Vector' lab probes secrets of smallpox - Reuters AlertNet - "It was one of
the world's most deadly plagues, and some fear it might again be unleashed on
mankind if bio-terrorists could get their hands on the virus...A quarter of a
century after the last known case of smallpox, scientists at a heavily-guarded
installation called Vector, deep in Siberia, are still conducting research on
120 strains of the virus...Responsibility for safeguarding the stockpiles lies
with men like Sergei Netesov, Vector's deputy general director."
►February 17, 2004 -
Alert on
anti-smallpox vaccinia - Households cautioned about virus transmission -
Seattle Post-Intelligencer - "Soldiers and health care workers who take the
smallpox vaccine should take extra precautions against spreading the live virus
used in the vaccine to members of their household, according to a new report."
►February
10, 2004 -
Breastfed Baby Exposed to Smallpox Vaccine Virus
- Reuters Health - "Breastfeeding women who live with someone who
has been recently vaccinated against smallpox should take extra precautions to
prevent their infants from being exposed to the virus used in the vaccine,
according to a new report...Doctors at the Madigan Army Medical Center in
Tacoma, Washington, have documented the case of a breast-fed infant who was
exposed to the vaccinia virus, which is used in the smallpox vaccine...The
baby's mother had not been vaccinated against smallpox but her husband, a
soldier, was given the vaccine soon before the baby developed symptoms."
►February 10, 2004 - Smallpox
Vaccine Spread Virus Through Family - HealthDay Reporter via
www.lifeclinic.com - "By
his accounts and those of his 27-year-old wife, the soldier followed all
precautions. Although he slept in the same bed as his spouse, he washed his
hands, kept the site covered with gauze until it had fully healed and had
limited contact with his 5-month-old daughter who was still
breast-feeding...Nevertheless, in mid-May, the wife developed red, tender
swelling around both her nipples. The area blistered, then ulcerated, leaving
open sores around the nipple area. No one, including her doctor, suspected it
was a vaccinia reaction, so she continued breast-feeding until May 29, when it
became too painful...On the day she stopped breast-feeding, her baby developed a
tell-tale blister on her upper lip, which turned into a pustule and formed a
crust. The next day, she developed a similar lesion on her left check. On June
2, a pediatrician saw the facial lesions as well as one on her tongue and
diagnosed her with suspected vaccinia. She was transferred to Madigan Army
Medical Center, where she came under Fairchok's care...No one knows exactly how
the transmissions occurred."
January 26 - February 8, 2004 (2 weeks combined
due to illness)
►February 6, 2004 - 'The Challenge
is to Stay Vigilant' - Can the nation deal with a bioterror attack? A
top health official says that 'substantial' progress has been made since 2001 --
but more work lies ahead. - Newsweek via MSNBC - "But one issue
associated with the smallpox vaccine is the potential for toxicity. Because of
that, we got involved rapidly in some contract arrangements to develop a
second-generation smallpox vaccine. We already have it in phase one clinical
trials and have pilot lots. Within a reasonable period of time, we’ll have a
smallpox vaccine that is much less reactive, and therefore much more safe, than
the current one."
►February 8, 2004 -
Editorial: Smallpox preparations warrant close scrutiny
- MySanAntonio.com - "The Department of Homeland Security rolled out its plan
for administering smallpox vaccinations to public health officials in January
2003, saying about 500,000 first responders would be inoculated within a
month...A year later, only 39,213 civilians had been vaccinated, according to a
report issued by Democratic members of the House Select Committee on Homeland
Security...The partisan aspects of the report must be acknowledged. In a letter
to Rep. Jim Turner, D-Crockett, the committee's ranking Democrat, panel Chairman
Chris Cox, R-Calif., called the report harshly political and partisan."
►January 20, 2004 -
Pediatric Infectious
Disease Issues: Smallpox, Combination Vaccines and Methicillin-resistant
Staphylococcus aureusinHighlights of the American
Academy of Pediatrics Annual Meeting - Medscape -
"However, the combination of multiple vaccine antigens presents several
challenges. It should be recommended that the components of the vaccine be
administered at the same time. However, the reactogenicity and potential side
effects of the combined antigens have not yet been determined. Since there is
the potential for physical and chemical interaction among the vaccine components
and the buffers and preservatives, the immunogenicity of each component needs to
be addressed to determine whether these are similar to and as effective as the
components given individually.[10]"
Comment: From the horse's mouth. But not
only should the "reactogenicity and potential side effects of the combined
antigens" be determined, as well as the immunogenicity of each component be
compared to combined ones, the potential for lethal and otherwise harmful
combinations should be researched. For a highly disturbing study, in which
harmless viruses recombined with lethal results, click
here. (Note
that while affirming the potential risk of such combinations occurring, the only
apparent concern in this paper was for the immunogenicity of the components, not
any safety issues which might occur as a result of them interacting.)
►January 29, 2004 - Democrats:
Smallpox vaccination plan needs retooling - Eyeing a national smallpox
vaccination program they say is stalled, House Democrats are urging the U.S.
government to reinvigorate the plan for health-care workers if officials still
believe terrorists may use smallpox as a weapon. - CNN
►February 2, 2004 - Smallpox
vaccinations may be risky - UPI via
http://interestalert.com - "New studies show people vaccinated against
smallpox pose a low risk of infecting others if they follow proper bandaging and
hand-washing procedures."
►January 27, 2004 - New
smallpox vaccine being tested in the Valley -
www.kesq.com - "'Only half of the population of
the United States is immune to small pox right now and should something go
wrong, everyone should be vaccinated.'...Kelly Morris, who's researching the
test, says there is not enough of the old smallpox vaccine for everyone in this
country. So now the goal is to find a new more effective vaccine then make more
of it."
Comment: Let me get this straight, half the population is thought to be
immune but everyone needs to get vaccinated in the event of reemergence of
smallpox? And then because everyone will need the vaccine, we need to find
a new, more effective one because there isn't enough of the old one for
everyone, even though half are already immune? How about instead, if there
is a need for a a newer, more effective (how about safer, too?) vaccine, then go
ahead and develop one. But only vaccinate those who are not immune and
choose to be vaccinated, knowing that at the outset half the population is
already immune and may not want or need it.
January 19-25, 2004
►January 25, 2004
- How
smallpox affected our cemeteries - Corsicana Daily Sun- "My
only experience with smallpox occurred when I was vaccinated as a child for the
disease. My memory of the incident is that the vaccination left an ugly round
scar on my shoulder. I also remember everyone saying don't touch or scratch the
scab until it was completely healed. As a teenager, I was very self conscious of
the scar especially when we went swimming. I really don't know why I had these
thoughts since everyone I knew had a similar looking mark."
►January 24, 2004 - Shots
Have Healthy Repercussions Smallpox Vaccination Effort
Helped Officials Learn How To Prepare For Disaster, Doctors Say - The Hartford
Courant - "A year ago today, with the impending war with
Iraq as a backdrop, three Connecticut doctors rolled up their sleeves and kicked
off the nation's smallpox vaccination program...Anxiety about a smallpox attack
and the vaccination program itself have almost disappeared. In retrospect, say
those who were involved, it wasn't the vaccination effort that was important but
the act of preparing for disaster."
►January 22, 2004 - Little
interest shown for small pox vaccines - The
small pox inoculation is coming up small among first responders, according to
the Montgomery County health department. - The Mercury
January 12-18, 2004
►January 19, 2004 -
Smallpox mixes make a stir- USNews.com - "To many
public-health experts, it's disturbing enough that plain old smallpox lives on,
albeit under lock and key, at the CDC and a second lab in Russia. Now the World
Health Organization's committee on smallpox research is grappling with what to
do about strange variants of the deadly virus. While urging the CDC to get rid
of the old-fashioned hybrids, the panel is weighing proposals to create new
smallpox chimeras using the powerful tools of genetic engineering."
►January 13, 2004 - Smallpox Scare at Pioneer
Valley Hospital - KSL News - "A simple
case of Chicken Pox brought out the health department and caused quite a stir at
West Valley's Pioneer Valley Hospital...It's not everyday a common childhood
disease attracts so much attention. But that's all changed in our post September
11th world with worries over terrorists, getting their hands on chemical and
biological agents."
►The
Dangers of Smallpox Vaccination -
www.naturodoc.com - "The
public is now getting lots of medical propaganda about the eradication of
smallpox through vaccination. But in fact, the consensus among leading medical
historians that have studied the question have maintained that the eradication
of the zymotic, or "filth" diseases, like cholera, dysentery, typhus, plague, in
the past that are popularly attributed to mass vaccination campaigns, had
actually been due to improvements in diet, hygiene, sanitary measures,
non-medical public health laws, and to a host of new non-medical technologies,
like refrigeration, faster transportation, removing horse manure from cities,
and the like (McKinlay, 1977; McKeown, 1979; Moberg & Cohen, 1991;
Oppenheimer, 1992; Dubos, 1959)."
January 5-11, 2004
►January 19, 2004 -
Smallpox
mixes make a stir - Virus
Research - www.usnews.com - "Cleaning out
the freezer usually turns up old stuff that's been long forgotten. That holds
true even for the supersecure freezers that safeguard vials of deadly smallpox
virus deep within the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. A
recent inventory unearthed unusual chimera viruses created 40 years ago by
crudely combining smallpox with other pox viruses...To many public-health
experts, it's disturbing enough that plain old smallpox lives on, albeit under
lock and key, at the CDC and a second lab in Russia. Now the World Health
Organization's committee on smallpox research is grappling with what to do about
strange variants of the deadly virus."
►January 9, 2004 - New
warning over monkeypox threat - The US could face further outbreaks of
dangerous monkeypox if the virus has gained a foothold among native animals, say
experts. - BBC
►January 5, 2004 -
Smallpox vaccine elusive - Public demand for vaccination has subsided.
Concerns about side effects may outweigh fear of disease. - The Morning
Call Online - "Even a
potentially safer experimental vaccine against the deadly disease being tested
by the National Institutes of Health has insufficient takers. After a year,
program officials have enrolled 130 of the 185 participants needed."
Comment: Given that
the smallpox vaccine is known to have (an unknown number of) serious reactions
and the risk of getting smallpox is probably small, it would seem that the
public does know best.
Comment: Unless they
expect serious adverse reactions to occur in more than 1/185 people, a study of
this size certainly cannot be expected to identify serious adverse reactions.
►December
30, 2003 -
Smallpox attack simulation uncovers critical communications problems: report
CP via Health Canada Network - "Thank God it was only a simulation...A
multi-country bioterrorism exercise held earlier this year highlighted critical
weaknesses in intergovernmental communications capabilities and national
response capacities, a report on a mock smallpox attack reveals."
DISCLAIMER: All
information, data, and material contained, presented, or provided here is for
general information purposes only and is not to be construed as reflecting the
knowledge or opinions of the publisher, and is not to be construed or intended
as providing medical or legal advice. The decision whether or not to vaccinate
is an important and complex issue and should be made by you, and you alone, in
consultation with your health care provider.
Smallpox Vaccination Effort
Helped Officials Learn How To Prepare For Disaster, Doctors Say - The Hartford
Courant - "A year ago today, with the impending war with
Iraq as a backdrop, three Connecticut doctors rolled up their sleeves and kicked
off the nation's smallpox vaccination program...Anxiety about a smallpox attack
and the vaccination program itself have almost disappeared. In retrospect, say
those who were involved, it wasn't the vaccination effort that was important but
the act of preparing for disaster."