Risks Of Smallpox Vaccination
The U.S. government is working to make a smallpox vaccination available to Americans as a safety precaution to the suppose threat of terrorists use of the virus as a biological weapon. But some say the risks of using a vaccine may outweight the benefits.
Three people who received the smallpox vaccination have died after suffering heart attacks.
The national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Advisory Committee on Immunization practices met Tuesday to determine who should be deferred for vaccination and to devise guidelines for clinics to use in screening potential vaccine recipients.
The Early Show Medical Correspondent Dr. Emily Senay explains the nation stopped routine smallpox vaccination in 1972, and the disease was declared eradicated worldwide in 1980.
But, she says, the U.S. and Russian governments hold stocks of the deadly virus, and bioterrorism experts worry that samples could fall into terrorists hands and be used as a weapon.
As part of the nation's bioterrorism preparedness plan, CDC says 25, 645 individuals in the United States have been vaccinated between January 24 and March 21, most of them women, over the age of 45. But three people lost their lives to the vaccination.
In Maryland, a female nurse in her 50s suffered a heart attack and died just five days after receiving her inoculation. Also, a 57-year-old woman in Florida was vaccinated and died of a heart attack. And according to the Pentagon, a 55-year-old National Guardsman died this week from a heart attack following smallpox vaccination. The two women had a history of heart disease, and the soldier was a smoker who had high cholesterol and coronary disease.
In addition to the three fatalities, five other cases of heart problems have been reported among people shortly after they were inoculated: one other person suffered a heart attack, two suffered mild pericarditis — an inflammation of the heart of its membranes — and two suffered angina, according to the CDC.
Ten cases of mild pericarditis were also reported among the 500,000 military personnel who have received the vaccination since early January. But, all patients recovered and returned to duty.
Florida halted the vaccinations Friday, citing the heart problems. New York did so earlier.
The CDC and The Defense Department have asked people diagnosed with heart disease not to be vaccinated against smallpox until it can be determined whether there is a casual link.
Senay says during the course of the CDC's meeting to devise guidelines for smallpox vaccination, they discussed options for a policy that would presumably be temporary until they have a better understanding of the connection between cardiac arrest and the vaccination.
The first option discussed was to exclude persons with known underlying heart disease with or without symptoms.
The second option was to exclude those that have three or more risk factors.
And the third option was to exclude people 50 years of age and older.
The consensus by the CDC was to implement the second option and exclude those with three or more heart disease risk factors such as high cholesterol.