News & Perspective

(CIDRAP News) – State plans for giving smallpox shots to frontline healthcare workers list more than 3,600 hospitals that may participate in the program, and most of those hospitals have agreed to take part, according to federal health officials.

(CIDRAP News) – A new national survey suggests that most Americans have serious misconceptions about smallpox, including a belief that smallpox cases have occurred in the past 5 years and that smallpox is treatable.

(CIDRAP News) – VaxGen Inc., a California biotechnology company, announced plans this week to seek US licensing for an attenuated smallpox vaccine that is considered safer than existing vaccines but was developed too recently to be proved effective against the disease.

(CIDRAP News) – Two recent public opinion polls suggest that somewhere between half and two thirds of Americans would get a smallpox shot if it were offered, despite the risk of serious side effects.

(CIDRAP News) – Federal health officials project that about half of the estimated 10 million health and emergency response workers targeted for the second round of smallpox vaccinations will refuse the shots.

(CIDRAP News) – In a brief statement today, President George W. Bush announced that the government will begin giving smallpox shots to military and other government personnel in high-risk areas and to willing front-line healthcare workers.

(CIDRAP News) – President Bush tomorrow will announce a plan to begin vaccinating military personnel and front-line healthcare workers against smallpox early next year and to offer the vaccine to the public in 2004, according to reports from major news organizations today.

(CIDRAP News) – The 7,000-member Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) has urged President Bush not to make smallpox vaccine available to the public for now, on grounds that serious reactions to it could undermine public confidence in the shots and in other immunizations as well.

(CIDRAP News) – Thirty-eight of 62 US states, territories, and major urban areas have filed "pre-event" smallpox vaccination plans with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) as of today. The plans for vaccinating key public health and healthcare personnel were due to the CDC yesterday.

(CIDRAP News) – Most people who took the opportunity to comment on a federal government proposal to test the smallpox vaccine in young children feel it's not a good idea.

Several hundred comments submitted in response to the proposal are available on a Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Web site, and it appears that most of them oppose the trial.