Smallpox vaccine

[LUVMyBirman]

Not sure if this has been posted..... new info on Smallpox vaccine.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=564&e=9&u=/nm/20030227/ts_nm/health_smallpox_dc

 

[hhardt]

So? Based on what I have learned from all the people I have talked to - and on what I have learned concerning what smallpox can do - if the government recommends I take it, I will with no hesitation. Those very small odds of getting a reaction don't compare in any way with the odds of surviving a terriorist smallpox attack.

 

[Les]

Having been born in 1953, I was inoculated with the vaccine with no choice in the matter. Obviously, suffered no reaction as I and millions of others are still here. Now we're being told that after all these years, that immunization might not protect us in the event of a new outbreak. I get a bit leery of the government meddling in medicine and / or mass immunizations. Does anyone remember the "Pandemic That Never Was" in 1976 with the Swine Flu scare? Because of a small outbreak at Fort Dix, NJ, the entire nation was literally scared into submission by government over-reaction . As a result, there were 56 deaths, 500 to 600 impaired or hospitalized, and over 1.7 billion dollars in compensation. Yet, there was never a single case of human to human transmission of Swine Flu outside Fort Dix. Panic will kill more than the disease.
That being said, I probably would get "shot" again with smallpox vaccine because after surviving two OHS, I'll be damned if I'm willing to croak because of this...
______________________
Les AVR '93 / '95

 

[hhardt]

I got the flu during the epidemic in the mid-50s. Best I can remember was that avr is almost as bad.
My mother told me of the soldiers, killed by the flu epidemic during WW I, stacked like firewood on rail baggage cars waiting for the train to pick them up near Chatanooga, with name tags attached to their toes....
And I remember the polio gamma globelin vaccinations my mother helped run for the whole county in upper east Tennessee trying to slow down the incidence of polio. And everyone lined up because they saw the danger and were scared.
It is little instances like these that cause reactions toward the safe side by people that remember. If the shots held it at bay, then they worked. Who knows. But much more would have died had they done nothing and it was happening again.
All these were to stop natures' accidents. One can only imagine what may happen if a strain that is known to be effective is set loose on purpose. That is why we worry and why the "government meddling in medicine and / or mass immunizations" happens. And most of our medical support are too scared to take theirs. Better say your prayers. I do.