The smallpox vaccine is now officially "real". The US Department of Health and Human Services is planning to compensate anyone who suffers from severe side effects (up to and including a fatal case of death) from the Smallpox innoculation. From the BBC[1]:
The new plan, proposed by Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson, is designed to encourage more workers to get the vaccine.The US Federal Government did something similar in the mid 70's during the Ford administration with mass immunization against influenza. That year, the fear was that an epidemic as bad as the swine flu of 1919 was about to peak.[...]
The workers, mostly nurses and clinic workers will then be ready to vaccinate up to eight million colleagues, emergency workers and police in case there is ever a smallpox attack.
The smallpox vaccine uses a live virus related to smallpox called vaccinia. It has a high rate of side-effects compared to more modern vaccines.
Studies suggest it could kill up to one in a million people who receive it and can cause blindness, a scarring rash, encephalitis and other side-effects in dozens of others[2].
Immunologists and public health officials learned a lot from that debacle. The liability issues seem to have long since been resolved with the current reinvigorated smallpox vaccine. Looks like DHHS is getting very serious about this. It's not a done deal yet, but enlightening that discussions have already gotten this far.
[1]Yes, I see the irony in reading about US events via the BBC.
[2]Obviously, the risk of death is not as common as this sloppily written prose would have you believe. For each person who dies from this vaccine, expect a few dozen other milder side effects, not a few dozen people suffering side effects per million fatalities. :-)
Look on the bright side -- the incidence of side effects LESS mild than death is probably 0 in a million!
To repurpose the proverb of Nietzsche (who I hereby respell as Nichi, because we have to draw the line somewhere): What does not kill me, makes me blinder, more crippled, and more brain-damaged.
Re:Less than zero
ziggy on 2003-03-08T04:14:43
I don't have the epidemiological statistics in front of me, but I would hazard to guess that if 8 million health care workers were innoculated, then perhaps as many as 1 million would suffer side effects (headache, nausea, fatigue), and perhaps as many as a few dozen might die.The Nietzchean corrollary on this news story should be "that which does not inform me makes me more skeptical..."
