Word: smallpox
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Into this environment has come the national program to prepare for the possible use of smallpox as a bioterrorist weapon. On Dec. 13, 2002, President George W. Bush announced a plan to protect the United States by offering smallpox vaccination to ten million Americans. Healthcare workers, public health personnel, public safety personnel and Department of Defense employees would receive smallpox vaccinations over the next year, followed at some point by mass vaccination of the general public. This plan has generated substantial debate in the public health community. As in any measure to protect the public health from an infectious agent...
...vaccines was quietly attached to legislation establishing the Department of Homeland Security-but a furious outcry led to its repeal two months later. Now it's been coupled to a bill that would-finally-set up a compensation program for health care workers who suffer serious side effects from smallpox vaccines. The absence of such a program is a big reason why fewer than 13,000 of the Bush administration's target of 500,000 health care and emergency workers have received the shot so far. The bill would also kick-start Bush's bioshield initiative, designed to speed...
...with the nation on the brink of war and possible bioterror retaliation, the bill - which is scheduled for a Senate committee vote this Wednesday, a week after the U.S. Surgeon General got his smallpox vaccination in front of news cameras in hopes of inspiring others - may founder. Republican Sen. Judd Gregg added the controversial language dealing with the preservative thimerosal -- which some parents believe can cause autism - to the smallpox vaccine bill at the behest of Majority Leader Bill Frist; it would kick all lawsuits involving thimerosal out of court and funnel claims through the preexisting, government-funded Vaccine Injury...
...Democrats, nursing union members and others were already objecting that the smallpox compensation piece of the bill, which is based on a proposal reluctantly devised by the White House earlier this month, is too restrictive: Benefits would kick in only after 5 days of missed work, lost wage reimbursement would be set at 66% and capped at $50,000, and only workers who get their shots within 120 days of when the feds publish rules implementing the legislation would be eligible. The thimerosal provision, though, has triggered a new layer of furor...
Researchers have also learned that human AIDS, unlike diseases such as rabies or smallpox, can't be reliably imitated in animals, so vaccines have to be tested in humans by trial and error. In that sense, the AIDSVAX test was a success even as it failed. "For so many years," says VaxGen's president, Dr. Don Francis, "the conventional view was that we couldn't do efficacy trials for AIDS vaccines. You couldn't get volunteers, and people would increase their risk behaviors if they thought they were protected. We've proved that you can do trials with the highest...