Smallpox Shot Program off to Slow Start

Smallpox Shot Program off to Slow Start

NewsMax Staff
Saturday, Feb. 8, 2003

Forty-two states and 4 county and municipal health departments have ordered 256,100 doses of the smallpox vaccine, according to data on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website. However, reports the CDC, only 687 frontline volunteer health care workers have received the controversial shot since President Bush’s smallpox vaccination program kicked-off about two weeks ago.

Furthermore, a nationwide survey of state health officials indicates that about 350 hospitals have thus far declined to participate, while hundreds more have yet to make a decision, according to a report in the New York Times, which also sponsored the survey.

Many of those polled by the Times who have declined the vaccination suggested that they had weighed the risk of a terrorist attack using the deadly germ with the risk of reactions inherent in the shot itself. They also cited concerns with missing work owing to shot reactions and not being compensated.

The CDC reported a recent vaccination trial that was conducted among 680 adults, all of whom were first-time takers of the shot, which hasn’t been routinely given since the 1960s.

During the two-week period after vaccination, all reported having at least one of the following symptoms at some point:

Fatigue -- 50 percent

Headache – 40 percent

Muscle aches and chills -- 20 percent

Nausea – 20 percent

Fever – 10 percent

Pain at the vaccination site – 86 percent

Regional lymph node swelling -- 54 percent

According to the CDC, approximately one third of those given the shot in the study group were sufficiently ill to have trouble sleeping or to miss school, work, or recreational activities.

Similar findings were reported by the CDC Smallpox Diary Card Database, a reporting system of post-vaccination symptoms among 633 folks who received smallpox vaccine during 2001—2002.

Institutions Balk As Well

Although touted as part of the nation’s comprehensive preparation against a terrorist attack or a war on Iraq, institutions have been balking at having their staffs take the shot, which results in a scab that for a time is infectious by contact to perhaps vulnerable, diminished-immunity patients being tended in the hospitals.

Those with suppressed immunities are not advised to have the shots. When it was last used in the 1960’s, the vaccine generated up to 52 life-threatening reactions and two deaths for every million vaccinations.

Margaret Preston, a spokeswoman for Catholic Health Initiatives of Erlanger, Ky., which owns St. Vincent Infirmary Medical Center in Little Rock Ark, told the Times that vaccinating the health workers “puts the patients at risk, and the risk outweighs the benefits.”

A spokesperson for Providence Health Systems in Washington State revealed to the Times it would not want vaccinated employees tending patients during the three weeks they could shed virus from their scabs, and, furthermore could not afford to make up the resulting staff shortage.

Additionally, the Times cited the case of the Virginia Commonwealth University Health System, which stated it would not vaccinate until one confirmed case of smallpox appeared in the world.

The federal government is not recommending that members of the general public be vaccinated at this point. According to the CDC, “Our government has no information that a biological attack is imminent, and there are significant side effects and risks associated with the vaccine. HHS is in the process of establishing an orderly process to make unlicensed vaccine available to those adult members of the general public without medical contraindications who insist on being vaccinated either in 2003, with an unlicensed vaccine, or in 2004, with a licensed vaccine.”

Scott McClellan, a White House spokesman, told the Times that the program was “still very much in the early stages. We are confident that more than enough health care workers will answer the call so that we are prepared to respond to protect our fellow Americans in the event of any attack.”

However, Dr. William J. Bicknell of the Boston University School of Public Health has advocated vaccinating 10 million Americans as quickly as possible. Bicknell placed some blame for the lackluster first couple of weeks on the CDC, concluding the agency allowed potential volunteers to conjure up exaggerated fears.

Bicknell advised that, thus far, there have been no dramatic reactions to the vaccine among the volunteers, and that the large scale Israeli and United States military vaccination campaigns have had few problems, according to the Times report.