The Cellar - View Single Post - We don't need no steenkin' smallpox vaccination!

russotto · 12-19-2002, 10:01 AM

You know, for all these worries about the smallpox vaccine, we seem to be forgetting that just about everyone older than myself was routinely vaccinated with it as an infant.

Our standards of risk have gotten much tighter in the past 30 years, and that's mostly a bad thing. But now the Nervous Nellies find themselves in a double-bind -- worry overmuch about a vaccine, or worry overmuch about biological warfare? Oh, the HANDWRINGING....

Me, I'm a fatalist. I figure that if someone does use smallpox as a biological weapon, they'll have engineered it to work in vaccinated individuals as well.

12-19-2002, 10:01 AM	#3
russotto Professor Join Date: Jan 2001 Posts: 1,788	Paranoia You know, for all these worries about the smallpox vaccine, we seem to be forgetting that just about everyone older than myself was routinely vaccinated with it as an infant. Our standards of risk have gotten much tighter in the past 30 years, and that's mostly a bad thing. But now the Nervous Nellies find themselves in a double-bind -- worry overmuch about a vaccine, or worry overmuch about biological warfare? Oh, the HANDWRINGING.... Me, I'm a fatalist. I figure that if someone does use smallpox as a biological weapon, they'll have engineered it to work in vaccinated individuals as well.