![]() ![]() That occurs in about 500 people for every million that get the vaccine. If you scratch where the smallpox is at the surface, and you put it to the eye, you can transfer the smallpox to your eye. When you get vaccinated with the weaker virus, you become immune to the smallpox virus.īut once in a while, the vaccine does more harm than good. The smallpox vaccine is made from a weak biological cousin of the smallpox virus. It has a side effect profile that we, we would not accept for vaccines today," he says. But all the vaccines that we use today are the result of modern technology. "We tend to think of vaccines as being very safe and every effective, which they are. The vaccine used today is essentially the same, Offit says. There's nothing new about the smallpox vaccine. In his lab at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, he studies and creates new vaccines. Paul Offit, one of the country's top infectious disease specialists, and he knows all about vaccines that prevent those diseases. ![]() "We know if we immunize a million people, that there will be 15 people that will suffer severe, permanent adverse outcomes and one person who may die from the vaccine," says Dr. It could protect Americans from the unthinkable destruction of a smallpox attack. Scientists say it's the most dangerous vaccine known to man. Some people die from it and others have serious reactions, some permanent. The vaccine effectively immunizes against smallpox. It kills one out of every three of its victims. But now, the government has decided to bring back the vaccine because of fear that terrorists, or Iraq, could use the virus as a weapon.īut smallpox was, or is, a terrible, virulent disease. Soon after that, doctors eradicated the disease from the planet. The United States stopped giving mandatory smallpox vaccinations 30 years ago. Or treat people with a vaccine that is extremely effective at blocking the disease but can cause dangerous, sometimes fatal, reactions. ![]() ![]() The general public will be offered the vaccine on a voluntary basis as soon as large stockpiles are licensed, probably early in 2004, though the government will not encourage people to get them.Ħ0 Minutes II Correspondent Dan Rather reports that in evaluating the potential danger of smallpox, the Bush administration has faced a deadly dilemma: Do not vaccinate the population against small pox and leave millions of people vulnerable to one of the worst scourges known to man. That's according to administration sources who say the shots will be mandatory for about 500,000 military personnel and recommended for another half-million who work in hospital emergency rooms and on special smallpox response teams. With that in mind, President Bush is expected to announce on Friday a plan which will gradually make the smallpox vaccine available to all Americans who want it. ![]()
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