As a follow-up to my previous post: Many people in the US are concerned about the possibility of terrorists using smallpox as a biological weapon against Americans (similar to how early European-Americans used it as a biological weapon against Native Americans). The US government is paying for the production of 300 million doses of smallpox vaccine, enough to vaccinate every person in the country, with plenty left over. But there currently are no plans for massive immunization campaigns of all US citizens, even though pretty much no one has protection any more, since they stopped giving routine smallpox vaccinations in the late 1970s/early 1980s, and the immunizations do not confer life-time immunity. So why no plans for universal vaccinations? Because it is estimated that about 400 people would die, from the vaccinations themselves, if all 220 million people in the US were vaccinated at one time. And that would be a public relations disaster . . . Or at least, it would be until such time as people actually start dying from smallpox. Currently the plan is that if a person is diagnosed with smallpox, only their *contacts* (family members, co-workers or school classmates, neighbors, etc.) would be vaccinated -- the CDC predicts that about 2,000 people would receive the vaccination for each identified case. If you don't want anyone to die of complications from smallpox vaccine, then you don't vaccinate anyone. If you don't want anyone to die of smallpox itself, then you vaccinate everyone. The current CDC plan is to try to strike a balance. I think their approach is reasoned and logical, and epidemiologically sound. But I predict massive panic in the streets if people start being diagnosed with smallpox and most other people can't get vaccinated because they are not in the circle of 'contacts' as defined by the CDC. Just something more to think about. There are no 100% risk-free choices -- about anything in life. Kathy Dettwyler _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp. *********************************************** The LACTNET mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's LSMTP(TM) mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to: http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html