Smallpox Still A Threat Despite Feds Opinion
Daily Observer
“Victorious End Appears in Sight in Age-Old War on Smallpox” is the
extravagant headline in the section “Medical news” of a recent issue of the
Journal of the American Medical Association.
“There is hope that this old scourge may be gone for good in the very
near future,” said David J. Sencer, M.D., director of
the Center for Disease Control. The
doctor feels that, with one more good effort, whatever that is, smallpox will
be eradicated for good from the earth.
On the basis of this hope, and while a hundred thousand cases ravage Bangledesh, and many more than the fourteen or so thousand
cases reported from Ethiopia actually exist
there, the Center for Disease Control recently decided to drop routine
vaccination in the United States.
The reason for this was the several hundred deaths yearly that occurred
from the vaccination of children, deaths that, in many cases, could have been
avoided had certain chemical tests been done before the vaccine was
applied. As a result, within the next
several generations, the
The morbidity and mortality of un-vaccinated adults to their first
contact with vaccine is infinitely higher than that of infants. Thus a decision has been taken to place the entire
country at risk before the virus of smallpox has been eliminated from the
world. To an un-vaccinated world, a
single case is sufficient to return us to the dark ages of medicine. It would seem more prudent to have waited
until ten years of smallpox-free medical history had been written before making
so crass a decision to eliminate mandatory vaccination against smallpox, which
normally kills at least 20 of every hundred people afflicted.
Simultaneously, the very same Center for Disease Control bemoans the
fact that the drop in immunization against diseases such as measles, rubella,
diphtheria, pertussis and tetanus raises the specter
of major epidemics. The contradiction is
self evident.
None of these compare with smallpox as a killer. Polio, despite the pathetic
maiming of those who come down with the clinical disease, is actually mild in
epidemic form, conferring immunity without symptoms on about 90 percent of
those afflicted. Measles cause
some mortality, and often a tragic encephalitis, but
again, most cases are mild in children and, as the virus faced through a
community it conferred, as did polio, lifelong immunity. Tetanus was never an epidemic disease, and pertussis, or whopping cough rarely attacks adults.
All childhood disease are better contracted in
childhood. In adults, they pursue a far
more violent course. Thus, as a result
of the incomplete vaccination program against measles, the epidemics that used
to immunize the population have been averted, and a fairly large number of
young men and women have never been exposed.
These people form a particularly susceptible population who will be more
virulently attached then they would have been had they caught measles in the
usual epidemic fashion as children. In
1973, there were over 5000 cases of measles in
Dr. John J. Witte, Director of the Immunization Division of the Center
for Disease Control believes that the private physician is to blame for this,
and suggests that he comb his files and call in all patients who haven’t been
immunized, much as Ford or General Motors call in defective automobiles. Dr. Witte calls this immunization auditing.
It seems that Dr. Witte and Dr. Sencer, his
boss, ought to be introduced. One member
of the Janus-headed center says immunize, and the
other says don’t
Immunization for epidemiological purposes is the crux of preventive
medicine. Yet, the nation is beset by an
indecisive and dangerous policy that contravenes smallpox vaccination, while
epidemic rage in the world contracted by rapid air passage, and on the other
hand incompletely immunizes against less devastating diseases.
Certainly a parent is remiss who doesn’t insist that his child be
vaccinated against smallpox. Certainly,
if schools insist on vaccination against the lesser evils of polio, measles,
and tetanus, they must include smallpox on the list.
An argument can be made for the fact that, if the lesser diseases such as
measles and polio are permitted to run free among the population, there will be
a higher level of immunity and less mortality than there would be in a
population half immunized against these diseases.
But no argument can be made to drop mandatory smallpox vaccination as
long as it continues to ravage the populations of underdeveloped countries.