So I won't be sleeping tonight after reading this essay on Smallpox. It is a detailed (though a little graphic at times) essay about the danger we all now face from Smallpox - a virus that has officially been declared "eradicated" but still exists in a freezer near you. Virtually no one (in the world, that is) has immunity to the virus anymore because it no longer exists naturally.
Can you spell epidemic waiting to happen? What makes me nervous is not that this could be used as a bioweapon or the fact that my government doesn't seem to have taken notice to our vulnerability (there are maybe 7 million vaccines readily available - and it is estimated that we would require 100 million vaccines in the US to contain an epidemic)...
What makes me the most nervous is the fact that Smallpox is so contagious that it could be around the world in 6 weeks. What makes me nervous is the fact that if it were ever used, on any major worldwide population center, it could be in my backyard that fast. And I would have virtually no forewarning, since it takes at least 2 weeks for a physician to be able to diagnose the virus (if anyone would even recognize the symptoms of a virus barely anyone has seen in 30 years).
But that's okay, because the government is going to come and save me, right? Or maybe not. My money's on a cabin in the woods.
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2 comments:
If you're really that worried about it, I recommend finding a cow with cow-pox boils and rubbing a bit of it inside your nose.
It probably won't kill you (unless your immune system is compromised), and it will render your immune system capable of driving off smallpox.
"cow-pox" vaccines were being performed before vaccination was even really understood. It's probably one of the reasons smallpox didn't wipe us all out in the first place.
Wiping out Smallpox altogether may sound like a great idea, but those samples may eventually save us from something worse.
Besides, no one seeking to create a world epidemic really needs smallpox. All they need is a few petri dishes and a little creativity.
Welcome to the world of tomorrow!
Thanks for the comment, but I think you missed the point. My concern is not that we are all going to die from Smallpox --- it is that the American government is woefully unprepared to deal with a pandemic. Take the H1N1 virus this year for example. Yes, the vaccine was made and dispersed, but the majority of supplies available to the public did not arrive until late in the year. If this particular flu strain had actually been as serious of a danger as it might have been, we may have been able to SLOW its spread, but not prevent it. If this had been smallpox or, as you say, something that had been "creatively" developed, it would have been too late to save the US from seeing high levels of infection.
What makes the situation worse is that the majority of the American people believe that someone else will "fix things" if there is a major disaster. This simply isn't true. People need to realize that and take steps now to prepare for the possibility.
I don't plan on my home burning down
but I still buy home insurance. I don't plan on a smallpox outbreak hitting the US, but that doesn't mean I shouldn't have a plan just in case.
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