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medpundit |
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Thursday, May 16, 2002I keep reading in popular media reports about the awful side effects of the vaccine, but those side effects are rare. Maybe it's because I'm old enough to remember being vaccinated against smallpox myself that I'm not so concerned about side effects. All of my contemporaries were vaccinated, too. It was compulsory in the late 1960's. The only thing it left me with was a scar on my arm, and I don't remember any of my classmates dying or developing horrible rashes. Of course, today we have more people with compromised immune systems, both from drugs they take (chemotherapy, some arthritis medications) and from disease (HIV, leukemia). A mass immunization effort would mean that these people would have to take special care to avoid the recently immunized, for they would be at risk for catching the virus even from an immunized person. One other risk group that doesn't fall into the usual risk category for easy infection is people with eczema. For some reason they are also prone to developing smallpox after exposure to someone who has been vaccinated. It may be fear of litigation from these groups of people that is giving the adminstration pause. They could, after all, be unknowingly exposed to someone in public places. But, if they are exposed to a smallpox attack, it would be far worse for them. At some point we have to decide that the public good outweighs the concerns of a few. As an aside, I've recently been reading the The New Letters of Abigail Adams, a book I picked up at a used book sale. She was obsessed with smallpox. She was constantly referring to innoculating her own children and her grandchildren. She even offered to pay for the innoculation of a potential servant to try to entice him to move from Boston to New York when Adams was serving as Vice-President. She obviously knew just how bad smallpox could be. posted by Sydney on 5/16/2002 05:21:00 AM 0 comments 0 Comments: |
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