The big deal about the smallpox vaccine is that to the best of anybody's knowledge smallpox isn't a foreseeable threat, in the sense of legal foreseeability. I mean, in California there are earthquakes and construction has to take that into account, but in DC nobody builds with earthquakes in mind. Just not foreseeable.
I have a friend who's an actuary. I haven't asked him but I expect that he'd say he couldn't even calculate the risk of getting smallpox because it's not out there.
We know we have some in a lab, and the Russians have some in a lab, and neither of us are going to release it.
We are fairly certain that the Iranians have it and the North Koreans have it, and maybe the French.
Why immunize? Why now?
One in a million chance of death means that 288 Americans will die, and what, 30 Canadians?
Chance of serious neurological damage far higher.
If the government makes it available, I will take that as a signal that our intelligence believes that there is a foreseeable risk that either Iraq or North Korea is planning on releasing it into the population. Then it becomes a no brainer.
Smallpox kills 30% of victims, far more if the victim is an infant, elderly or has a compromised immune system (people who have transplants, HIV positive, taking cancer chemotherapy.) Not sure if I qualify as "compromised immune system -- I am taking a weird cocktail of drugs for rheumatoid arthritis to attenuate my immune system. I would probably wait to see how the vaccine affected others taking the same drugs, since I've already been inoculated, and live in an area where it would be easy to get immunized if there was an outbreak, but I'd encourage Chris, the boys, and my mother to get immunized.
BTW, the vaccine doesn't use smallpox virus so you can't get it from the vaccine. Smallpox is variola, the vaccine is vaccinia. You can catch vaccinia from someone who was vaccinated -- it's a mild disease but potentially deadly. |
