-Caveat Lector-
From
http://www.dailycal.org/article.asp?id=6889
}}}>Begin
A 10,000-Year-Old Killer
By WESTYN BRANCH-ELLIMAN
Courtesy/Aventis Pasteur
SMALLPOX may be used as a bioweapon by terrorists.
Daily Cal Senior Staff Writer
Wednesday, October 31, 2001
Rameses V, one of the pharaohs of Egypt, is believed to have died
from a smallpox infection. Smallpox evolved relatively recently,
appearing approximately 10,000 years ago around the time when humans
developed agriculture.
Eradicated from the world during the 1970s, few individuals living
today have any immunity against this deadly pathogen.
The combination of little immunity, a high mortality rate, an even higher morbidity
rate, high infectivity and relatively high medical mystery makes smallpox an almost
ideal biological warfare agent. Currently, the U.S. g
overnment only keeps enough vaccine to protect only a small percent of the population.
The smallpox vaccine is made up of live attenuated cowpox virus, a relative of
smallpox. The vaccine is composed of an active agent that is relatively benign but
still has the ability to cause some illness.
Public health officials in the United States stopped routine vaccination of all
citizens in 1971 because they decided that the risk of dying from the vaccine was
greater than the risk of contracting the disease.
According to the National Institutes of Health, the vaccine is deadly for between one
and six people per million who receive treatment. The vaccine is significantly more
dangerous for people with weakened immune systems,
such as the elderly, AIDS patients and cancer patients. Even more people are
susceptible to serious side effects from the vaccine, including severe brain
inflammation.
The attacks of Sept. 11 may have changed the government's position that the dangers of
the vaccine outweigh the dangers of being exposed to smallpox�the U.S. government has
announced plans to accelerate the production of
enough vaccine to protect the entire population.
They maintain, however, that they do not plan to vaccinate civilians in the near
future, but plan to give the smallpox vaccine to people who may have been exposed.
Administering the vaccine to people believed to have bee
n exposed to smallpox is thought to prevent disease.
Relatively little is known about how smallpox causes illness because it was largely
eliminated as a disease threat before the advent of modern molecular biology. Some
programs, however, continue to study smallpox in effor
ts to combat the threat of biowarfare.
After replicating inside host cells, smallpox particles recruit a host molecule using
one of its own proteins. Using the stolen host cell protein, each virus forces the
cell to make a protein ladder to climb out of the ce
ll. Once it has left the first cell, the virus is free to invade more cells and cause
more pathology in the host.
Ken Alibek, a scientist who worked for the former U.S.S.R.'s bioterrorism program,
Biopreparat, has stated that their scientists stockpiled strains of smallpox that are
especially deadly and have a short incubation period
.
The short incubation period might prevent the post-exposure vaccine from protecting
exposed individuals from developing illness.
Arthur Reingold, an epidemiologist in the UC Berkeley School of Public Health, said
that even one case of smallpox in the United States would be devastating.
"If there is ever another case of smallpox, it will be a public health disaster,
resulting in panic, quarantine and large scale vaccination," he said. "If there is an
outbreak of multiple cases, things will much worse, an
d 30 percent or more of the cases will die."
Reingold added that, in the past, single cases of smallpox have caused wide-spread
panic and post-exposure vaccination.
"In theory, we could get away with just vaccinating those with close contact with a
case, but in practice (we) would undoubtedly end up vaccinating enormous numbers of
persons," he stated. "One case in Yugoslavia ultimate
ly produced over 100 secondary cases and led to vaccination of 20,000,000."
Although no antivirals have been tested on humans, the U.S. Army has tested several
different drug therapies in mice. They have found that one drug, cidofovir, is
effective at reducing mortality rates. This therapy has be
en shown to be effective in people with weakened immune systems to treat
cytomeglovirus, a different viral infection.
The drawbacks to this medication include that it has never been tested in humans who
were infected with smallpox.
News | Sports | Opinion | Columns | re:VIEW | Sci-Tech
(c) 2001
Berkeley, California
E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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