HOW TO CREATE A SMALLPOX EPIDEMIC-NY TIMES

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PLEASE POST WIDELY

The real question is, does our eugenics-inspired government and it's

corporate bosses want to innoculate the American people AGAINST smallpox or

innoculate them WITH smallpox? I believe it's the latter. RL See:

http://baltech.org/lederman/

NY Times May 10, 2002

Smallpox Vaccine Knowledge Found Lacking

By LAWRENCE K. ALTMAN

ATLANTA, May 9 - Doctors and the public poorly understand the dangers of the

smallpox vaccine and need to be better informed if vaccinations are to be

reintroduced after an absence of 30 years, federal health officials and

infectious disease experts said here today.

Focus groups conducted for a panel of scientists advising the government

uncovered a catalog of misinformation about the smallpox vaccine - the first

vaccine to be developed (in 1796) and considered to be the most dangerous.

Unlike most other immunizations, smallpox vaccine can harm recipients and

their contacts. Resumption of vaccination on a large scale would probably

lead to thousands of serious complications and hundreds of deaths, as it did

when millions of Americans were routinely vaccinated.

Today, the focus groups found, some doctors mistakenly believe that the

disease still occurs naturally. Many doctors, particularly those under 40,

know little about the vaccine's complications or how to use two-pronged

needles to administer it. The doctors also expressed concerns about

liability if they were to give the vaccine.

Many nonphysicians said they assumed that the vaccine was safe, provided

lifelong protection and was still given to children. (Before 1972, many

Americans were periodically revaccinated.) Many participants said they

believed that exposure to the smallpox virus was always fatal; in fact, the

death rate is about 30 percent.

Dr. Glen Nowak, from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,

reported the findings to the panel, known as the Advisory Committee of

Immunization Practices and the National Vaccine Advisory Committee. The

government asked it to determine by June 20 whether to continue the policy

of prohibiting vaccinations unless the disease returns in a bioterrorism

attack or to allow smallpox vaccine to be offered to everyone who wants it.

" The current knowledge levels of physicians and the public likely limit

understanding " of strategies intended for determining smallpox vaccine use

before or after a bioterrorist attack, Dr. Nowak said.

The disease control centers and the committee plan to hold forums around the

country over the next few weeks to discuss the risks and benefits of

reintroducing smallpox vaccination.

Current guidelines, published in June 2001, do not recommend smallpox

vaccine for the public. Vaccination is limited chiefly to laboratory workers

directly involved with smallpox virus or its close virological cousins. The

limits were based largely on the lack of enough vaccine. At the time, the

government had only 15 million doses.

But in the wake of the anthrax attacks last fall, the government has

expanded its stockpile of smallpox vaccine. Tests have shown that the 15

million doses can be diluted to 75 million. The drug company Aventis Pasteur

has donated about 80 million doses that have been frozen since 1958 and that

the government says would be used only in an emergency. The government is

also buying 220 million doses made by a new laboratory technique. Delivery

is expected by year's end.

Dr. D. A. , who led the worldwide smallpox eradication program in

the 1970's and is now an adviser to Tommy G. , secretary of health

and human services, told the panel that there was no information to suggest

that a smallpox attack was likely.

Yet, Dr. said, " there is a tremendous demand for smallpox vaccine

from every quarter, " including parents and health-care and other workers who

would be the first to respond in an attack.

If an outbreak occurs, the disease control agency says it will respond with

the technique known as ring vaccination, which was used to eradicate the

disease.

In the event of an attack, the agency's current policy - based on the

advisory committee's recommendations last June - is to give priority for

vaccination to individuals who had face-to-face contact with smallpox

patients in a household, workplace or during transportation to a hospital;

contacts of cases; or exposure to a deliberate release of the virus.

Dr. and other speakers at the meeting cited myriad problems if

smallpox vaccine were to be offered to all Americans who want it.

A crucial problem is that the Food and Drug Administration has approved none

of the smallpox vaccines for marketing and classifies all of them as

investigational. The classification requires that each individual give

consent before receiving the vaccine. Even the new generation of vaccine

will require informed consent until at least late 2003, said Dr. Phil

, a health and human services official.

The standard smallpox vaccine can cause a variety of severe, even fatal,

reactions. People with AIDS and other diseases that damage the immune system

are one particularly vulnerable group.

Millions of individuals with skin disorders like eczema, atopic dermatitis

and acne are at risk for potentially fatal complications. The panel was told

that serious reactions can occur in someone who had eczema years ago, a

problem complicated by the fact that many adults may not know they had it as

a child.

A recipient of smallpox vaccine may infect another person through transfer

of the virus by hand or bathing, and the infection can be far more severe in

such contacts than in the vaccine recipient.

Other complications include impaired vision from infection of an eye, heart

or bone; anemia; and encephalitis.

The blood supply could shrink if smallpox vaccinations became widely used

because donors are rejected for one year after a vaccination.

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