Was the germ-warfare risk overblown?

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Registered: 03-18-2000
Was the germ-warfare risk overblown?
5
Wed, 07-21-2004 - 1:18pm

The Smallpox Scare.
Was the germ-warfare risk overblown?


http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1101040726-665072,00.html



Did faulty intelligence lead to an overblown scare over smallpox? The Administration said the possibility of a smallpox attack by Iraq strengthened its case for war — and necessitated a major inoculation campaign. By mid-June, some 627,000 military employees and nearly 40,000 civilian first responders and health-care workers had been vaccinated. But this month's Senate report on prewar intelligence has concluded that the CIA's 2002 estimate that there was "an even chance" Saddam had weaponized smallpox was "not supported" by the evidence and says the agency now admits it has "no evidence that Iraq ever weaponized smallpox." David Kay, who ran the postwar hunt for Iraq's illegal weapons, says, "We spent a lot of effort on the smallpox threat, but by December we had come to the conclusion that there was just a dead end there."


That news comes too late for some. The civilian program has reported close to 900 "adverse events" occurring within days of inoculation, including one confirmed death from the vaccine. The military has reported one death and 75 cases of heart inflammation caused by the vaccine. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) last December launched a $42 million compensation program for those hurt by the vaccine; 54 requests for compensation have so far been filed with HHS, and one $262,000 payment for death has been made.

Supporters of the inoculation program say the danger of a smallpox attack is still real. The CIA stands by its 2002 assertion that North Korea may have the smallpox pathogen — though U.S. officials tell TIME that intelligence is even less reliable than what the CIA had on Iraq's smallpox program. Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz last month ordered an expansion of the Pentagon's smallpox-inoculation program. And HHS Secretary Tommy Thompson vowed as recently as January to continue pushing civilian smallpox vaccinations. But that may not last. A senior Thompson adviser, Donald Henderson — who ran the World Health Organization program that eradicated smallpox worldwide in the 1970s — told TIME last week that civilian inoculations are no longer necessary. "We don't need to vaccinate the first responders," he said. Top-level dissent could be the beginning of the end for the controversial program.

cl-Libraone~

 


Photobucket&nbs

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-18-2000
Wed, 07-21-2004 - 1:24pm
President signs vaccine legislation.

http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/07/21/bush.vaccine.ap/index.html


President Bush on Wednesday signed a bill to develop and stockpile vaccines and other antidotes to biological and chemical weapons.


The legislation provides the drug industry with incentives to research and develop bioterrorism countermeasures, speeds up the approval process of antidotes and, in an emergency, allows the government to distribute certain treatments before the Food and Drug Administration has approved them.


On Thursday, Bush is to sign the Law Enforcement Officers Safety Act, giving qualified off-duty and retired law enforcement officers the ability to carry their concealed firearms nationwide.


That same day the bipartisan September 11 commission releases its report saying the U.S. intelligence community missed the significance of "telltale indicators" of impending terrorist attacks, partly because of its piecemeal approach to intelligence analysis.


Later on Thursday, Bush travels to Illinois to tour the Northeastern Illinois Public Training Academy in Glenview, Illinois, and give a speech on homeland security.


Bush told supporter in St. Charles, Missouri, Tuesday night that fighting enemies abroad is the best way to prevent another attack on U.S. soil.


"In this big, sweet country of ours, there's no such thing as perfect security," Bush said. "The threats to this homeland are real. We know that the terrorists want to strike the United States again. They want to disrupt our way of life, or cause panic or great fear."


He said his administration has reorganized the government to increase communication among federal, state and local governments. The FBI also has changed its mission to make sure that counterterrorism is the top priority, he said.


According to a poll released Tuesday by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, 71 percent of Americans think the government is doing a "fairly well' or "very well" at protecting the nation against another terrorist attack. But the poll also said that a majority believe terrorists have at least the same ability to strike inside the United States as they did on September 11, 2001.


U.S. officials are hoping that Project BioShield, which Bush signed into law, will yield enough new-generation anthrax vaccine to dose 25 million people. Federal health officials also hope that the $5.6 billion program will provide antidotes for botulism and anthrax, a safer smallpox vaccine and a long-awaited children's version of an anti-radiation pill.


The program passed the House on a 414-2 vote on July 15. The discovery of sarin gas in a roadside bomb in Iraq and ricin and anthrax attacks against the Capitol spurred the Senate to pass it 99-0 in May.


"Modern terrorist threats come not just from explosions, but also from silent killers such has deadly germs and chemical agents," Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Massachusetts, an author of the bill, said in a statement released Tuesday night. "Project BioShield creates a lifesaving partnership between our government and the private sector to develop the vaccines needed to project our citizens from this bioterrorism. This bill could save millions of lives."

cl-Libraone~

 


Photobucket&nbs

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-16-2003
Wed, 07-21-2004 - 4:07pm
About a month ago I saw an article in an asian paper that said a child eligible for adoption came into the US from Korea. Since I haven't heard of an outbreak of small pox, I chalked it up to chicken pox. I suppose it is a good idea to have vaccines on hand, but the fear drives me nuts. Because I know it is a it is a re-election ploy. Fear is necessary for GWB to win the election, "Me powerful protector". Have you notices he now wants to be know as the "peace president". While people are laying odds that we will launch a "Change of Regime on Iran" after the election.

I happened to notice paragraph in an article I was reading yesterday. It struck a cord.

"Out of the coffers of antiquity and history have been opened the days of fear, emancipated to hover above the land of the free and the home of the brave. Yet it is fear that is slowly eroding both our freedoms and bravery. The days of fear have been reintroduced by a government intent on milking the fear factor for everything she’s got. It is fear that paralyzes, the ultimate weapon of power and control, a mechanism that attacks primitive human emotions and insecurities. If the citizenry is made to fear, whether it be real or invented, those in power can garner whatever they want for their own sinister motives. Fear freezes us dead in our tracks, it erases our rational and analytical human mind, replacing it with the fright of animals in danger. Fear is the headlight that makes the deer freeze. It is the sharp claws that makes a herd of gazelle flee. Fear is the unmistakable evasion of humans most animals in the wild exhibit."

http://www.axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/article_10372.shtml

iVillage Member
Registered: 07-01-2004
Wed, 07-21-2004 - 5:52pm
"Yet it is fear that is slowly eroding both our freedoms and bravery."

My husband and I had a conversation a while back where he spoke of the longevity of democratic societies. I forget the number he used, but he said to me, "look back in history and you will see that democracies ebb and flow, only existing for roughly x number of years before they shift to a different power orientation. The article you post here brought that conversation up to the forefront of my mind, as I think about how fear also somehow morphs into new laws that I see slowly chipping away at our constitutional rights. I wonder how long it will be till we have nothing left of freedoms? I can see where it's easy to use fear as a tool for a means to an end. Instill enough fear of problem x and next thing you know, that new law that outlaws freedom y, that will protect us from problem x is sailing through, passing with flying colors. Scary thought.

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-16-2003
Thu, 07-22-2004 - 10:14am
The world is changing while tremble and quake. Instead of playing to our fears the administration should remind us once again that "we have nothing to fear but fear itself". We have always been a brave country that felt itself capable of dealing with adversity. I don't like what is happening. And yes, we are giving away our freedoms because we want to feel safe. But if you look at the situation logically, safety is a delusion, i.e., as long as we think we're safe, we are! Nonsense, it is impossible to ensure safety. Funny how so many people are killed by cars, guns and disease yet don't become hystrical over that. Americans need to get a grip.
iVillage Member
Registered: 04-16-2004
Thu, 07-22-2004 - 12:15pm
Funny thing about this.

My wife and I were recently speaking to our pediatrician about our newborn's immunization and he said that there is a small outbreak of smallpox in Africa, and German Measels has popped up again in England and small areas in Europe right now.