It was only a matter of time before a death related to smallpox vaccine occurred. However, three deaths in only a few days last week are excessive.

Each of the deaths was in an individual over the age of 50. This vaccine has historically been given primarily to young children. There is very little information available on its effect upon adults, and especially older adults.

Revaccination has been touted as safer than first-time vaccination. Yet each of these deaths was among those who would have received smallpox vaccination as a child.

Also, all reports have been that only one or two per million die due to smallpox vaccination reactions. More than nine deaths per million is the rate with the small number vaccinated so far.

Time for some honesty

The many reports from last week commonly noted that smallpox vaccine has never been linked to heart problems before.

Yet a 60-year-old man was reported with angina (chest pain) by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) more than a month ago after receiving a smallpox vaccination.

Also, before the deaths of last week there were already many cases of myocarditis (a heart muscle inflammation) linked to the vaccine. These occurred in young and apparently healthy adults in the military supposedly "fit to serve".

Buried in one report was a notation that there have been heart problems linked in the past to smallpox vaccination. These were dismissed as "not scientifically accepted adverse events of the smallpox vaccine" by Dr. Walt Orenstein of the U.S. CDC.

Time for more honesty

A federal warning has now been issued to bar heart patients from smallpox vaccination. The U.S. CDC said this should only eliminate less than 10 per cent of those who could be vaccinated.

More than 50 per cent of Americans die from heart disease. How can only 10 per cent of Americans be eliminated from vaccination consideration if more than 50 per cent of Americans die from heart disease?

Most Americans don't even know they have heart disease until they have a heart attack. 20 to 25 per cent will die from that first heart attack without ever having even known that they had heart disease according to prestigious Johns Hopkins and Harvard medical schools.

Are you ready to take the smallpox vaccination with those odds?

Another matter of time

How many of you would reach into your freezer and serve up a 30-year-old cut of meat?

The smallpox vaccination currently being administered is from stocks frozen more than 30 years ago. There are no studies on the effects or safety of 30-year-old smallpox vaccines for anyone of any age.

These vaccines are from Wyeth Laboratories. The same folks who pulled their 'Sponge' contraceptive off the market a decade ago. The very same folks whose hormone replacement therapy was thoroughly discredited last year after decades of use.

Epitaph?

Federal officials had hoped for 450,000 civilians to receive smallpox vaccination by now. Only 25,000 have stepped forward and two of those have fallen permanently to their demise. That is a rate of 80 deaths per million. The other death was a military man.

Is it about time to bury the smallpox vaccination program at this time as well?