Poll: How Many of us are Immunized against Smallpox?

[mithrandir2001]

Also, the lasting effect of the vaccine is not infinite...it lasts about 30 years. So if you got a shot around 1970 or earlier, you'd probably need another "booster" shot. Few people, then, have much of a resistance against small pox.

 

[MiniThug]

The way I understand it is that the immunizations are only good for a 10 year period, or at least Iver heard so that would mean that no on is immune.

 

[Isla]

I was and I have nursed all my children so I have hope that if something like that were to happen, we would at least have a fighting chance.

I am currently looking into chewable vitamins that will help boost my little one's immune systems... I figure that enough people DO survive smallpox and the best defense besides immunizations is a healthy, strong immune system.

 

[StageLeft]

I may be wrong but I seem to recall that chewable vitamin C tablets are bad because the acid in them is bad on the teeth's enamel? I used to suck back a few a day but now all my vitamins I take in pill form.

 

[Fausto]

I was born in march 1971 and have no scar, my wife was born in november 1969 and has the scar.

Since I actually work for the CDC (about 100 yards from the building where the smallpox and other nasty shiZnit is kept as a matter of fact), here's some official linkage on smallpox.

Info on smallpox as bioweapon (yikes)

Clinical and Epidemiologic Features paper

Such a good little government employee I am..

Fausto

 

[Pliablemoose]

Where might the virus come from? At one time, it was believed that the smallpox virus was restricted to only two high-security laboratories, one at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Georgia, and one at the Russian State Centre for Research on Virology and Biotechnology, Koltsovo, Novosibirsk Region. By resolution of the 1996 World Health Assembly (WHA), those stocks were slated to be destroyed at the end of June 1999. The desirability of such an action was reaffirmed by a World Health Organization Expert Committee in January 1999. On May 22, 1999, WHA, however, passed a resolution postponing destruction until 2002, by which time any promise of the variola virus stocks for public health research could be determined. Destruction of the virus would be at least one step to limit the risk for the reemergence of smallpox. However, despite widespread acceptance of the 1972 Bioweapons Convention Treaty, which called for all countries to destroy their stocks of bioweapons and to cease all research on offensive weapons, other laboratories in Russia and perhaps in other countries maintain the virus. Iraq and the Soviet Union were signatories to the convention, as was the United States. However, as reported by the former deputy director of the Russian Bioweapons Program, officials of the former Soviet Union took notice of the world's decision in 1980 to cease smallpox vaccination, and in the atmosphere of the cold war, they embarked on an ambitious plan to produce smallpox virus in large quantities and use it as a weapon. At least two other laboratories in the former Soviet Union are now reported to maintain smallpox virus, and one may have the capacity to produce the virus in tons at least monthly. Moreover, Russian biologists, like physicists and chemists, may have left Russia to sell their services to rogue governments.

Smallpox is rated among the most dangerous of all potential biological weapons, with far-reaching ramifications.

 

[trmiv]

OK, its time to fire up the small pox vaccine program again.

 

[StageLeft]

OK does this vacine have to be taken before you get small pox, or is it a cure? I mean what happens?

If there was a an outbreak of significant size in new york could we be quarantined and immunized across the rest of the country in time?

 

[Aenygma]

None of us are immunized. They stopped around 1972 or 4, and it only lasts about 7 years. So even us who did get the shot, it has long since worn off. To be effective it needs boosters.

 

[Pliablemoose]

I'm not one to be an alarmist (?), but if you all would take the time to write your congressperson suggesting a nationwide smallpox program, I feel it would be well spent www.congress.org

 

[rickn]

skoorb: according to the CDC info, it prevents it, and it also can stop it if you catch it in the first 2-5 days once you have been infected

 

[StageLeft]

can stop it if you catch it in the first 2-5 days once you have been

Cool. So where can I order a syringe full?

 

[bunker]

We're all screwed anyway: (from John's Hopkins link in Fausto's post)

Approximately 140,000 vials of vaccine are in storage at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, each with doses for 50-60 people, and an additional 50-100 million doses are estimated to exist worldwide. This stock cannot be immediately replenished, since all vaccine production facilities were dismantled after 1980, and renewed vaccine production is estimated to require at least 24-36 months.

In 2000, CDC awarded a contract to Oravax of Cambridge, Massachusetts to produce smallpox vaccine. Initially producing 40 million doses, Oravax anticipates delivery of the first full scale production lots in 2004.

 

[StageLeft]

This stock cannot be immediately replenished, since all vaccine production facilities were dismantled after 1980, and renewed vaccine production is estimated to require at least 24-36 months.

Well perhaps its time to get these back on line, eh?

 

[bunker]

<< This stock cannot be immediately replenished, since all vaccine production facilities were dismantled after 1980, and renewed vaccine production is estimated to require at least 24-36 months.

Well perhaps its time to get these back on line, eh? >>


If you read the last 2 lines in my post they have a company producing it but won't be ready until 2004.

 

[StageLeft]

If you read the last 2 lines in my post they have a company producing it but won't be ready until 2004.

I did read it! I wonder though, why was this company set to go back on line? Is their intention to create 300,000,000 immunizations to treat the entire nation?

 

[bunker]

Oh, and for those of you who "think" you're vaccinated:

Vaccination ceased in this country in 1972, and vaccination immunity acquired before that time has undoubtedly waned.


Taken from here

 

[Balt]

<<As with any vaccine there is a risk of side effects and even possibly smallpx infection. Why take the risk?>>

Um, side effects maybe, but aren't smallpox vaccinations actually cowpox? There's no way you can get smallpox from that. I believe the scientist who made the first vaccination method discovered that people who milked cows were much less likely to contract smallpox than your average joe.

So if cowpox still exists, I guess you milk farmers might be safe (assuming you milk by hand, I guess).

 

[Jfur]

you cannot see my scar but I was definitely vaccinated against smallpox

 

[glen]

<< As with any vaccine there is a risk of side effects and even possibly smallpx infection. Why take the risk >>



Well, there is a risk that you will died in a car accident everytime you ride in a car.
Why take the risk?