"When many cures are offered for a disease, it means the disease is not curable" -Anton Chekhov
''Once you tell people there's a cure for something, the more likely they are to pressure doctors to prescribe it.'' -Robert Ehrlich, drug advertising executive.
"Opinions are like sphincters, everyone has one." - Chris Rangel
Case Study in Preparedness: In May, two doctors in Cleveland had a patient that had all the classic symptoms of smallpox. What happened is a case study in how badly our public health system is prepared to handle this. The state health department was no help. It took twenty-four hours to get blood and skin samples tested, and they had to be flown to the CDC in Atlanta to do it. In the meantime, the patient had to be quarantined in the hospital, putting patients and staff at risk of exposure. Not only that, but during his illness, he had been to two emergency rooms and one health clinic, potentially exposing many more people to the infection. It wasn't smallpox, of course, but if it had been, there certainly would have been a public health disaster. The case highlights just how difficult a "ring vaccination" defense would be. How on earth could you gather up everyone who had been in all the places the patient had for vaccinations? It's a persuasive argument for voluntary pre-attack vaccinations. And it's proof of how inadequately prepared the state of Ohio's public health system is for an event.
