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smallpox
Smallpox is one of the microorganisms that have played a very important role in the fields of microbiology, epidemiology and immunization in the past thirty years. It is not a microbe that is newly discovered or one that was just found out to be virulent it is the fact that is was eradicated in 1980 and is the only human disease to ever be globally eradicated. The history of smallpox dates back to the middle ages when 80% of the European population contracted it and later when they came over to the American colonies they had an immunity thanks to Edward Jenner and his hypothesis that cowpox and how milkmaids had pox of lesions on their skins but did not get sick from these lesions therefore he proved that a small does of a similar microbe can trigger the bodies immune system and when the body sees that microbe again it will know how to mount a defense against it.However,the Native Americans who were very susceptible and did not have the benefits of immunity died at an alarming rate at least3.5 million deaths are attributed to smallpox and some speculate that the Europeans intentionally gave them blankets that were laden with the virus. As time goes by smallpox is still a killer in many countries that did not use the vaccine. And in the countries where vaccinations are used there a many side effects such as permanent scarring at the injection site, pain, swelling, the inability to touch the injection site after injection to prevent spreading and in rare cases brain swelling and death do to ongoing tissue infection and distruction. So, smallpox was bad it was killing and the vaccine wasn’t the best either. Fastforward to 1967 when the WHO (worldwide health organization) begins a global campaign to wipeout smallpox there goal was simple completely eliminate smallpox. In order to do this that identified every known case, isolated victims and used their weapon of choice the smallpox vaccine. The campaign was powered by the knowledge that smallpox is specific to humans, there are no a symptomatic cases, smallpox presents quick this allows for quick quarantine and diagnosis, the virus is spread via close contact and a vaccine is available. They had the best of intentions, they never thought if you wipe out a disease some people will do anything to get there hands on the vials you have kept for research and deploy them on a population with no immunity. The inability to fathom that evil and the thought that humans are good and we want to help each other lead to the situation with smallpox we have today. Here we are in the 21 century and the United States stopped immunizations for smallpox in 1976 they were ceased worldwide in 1980.This means that anybody under the age of 31 in the US does not have immunity to this disease. The only people with immunity are 31 yrs. or older and some of our active military (only since 2001) This means if someone got there hands on some small pox vials which the CDC in the United States has and oh yes the former Russian empire had some to which many believe were sold to the highest bidder with the collapse of the Russian empire in the 1990’s.In short no ones knows how many vials there are or where they are. This is a heated scientific debate in the scientific community today do we destroy or keep them? This is how it stands right now if a smallpox virus were deployed it would be given to a human host and they would most likely be at the airport coughing, sneezing and spreading aerosol droplets they would look sick but would you think anything of it? By the time the index case (first case) was reported it would have spread very fast and remember the only people with immunity in this country are getting older and their immune systems weaker. It is estimated that if that were to happen half of the people 31 or younger in this country would die and ¼ would die or become seriously ill from the vaccine. That’s only if its just smallpox not smallpox mixed with plague or some other equally nasty microbe. The point to this sometimes things done with the best intentions can have unforeseen negative results. |
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This intel was contributed by mrsrj
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May, 2012
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