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CNN LIVE AT DAYBREAK

Should People be Given Vaccine to Protect Against Smallpox?

Aired December 12, 2002 - 05:02   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Let's get right to the president's plan for dealing with bioterrorism, vaccinating millions for smallpox. Five hundred thousand military personnel will get the vaccine first and after that the vaccines will be given to emergency health care workers on a voluntary basis and then to police, firefighters and other so-called first responders, in all, seven to 10 million people.
Now, one out of two of every million who get the vaccine will die from it. An administration official says the vaccine will be offered to the public, you and me, but that the time frame is not set for that yet.

Although smallpox was eradicated back in 1980, intelligence officials fear Iraq has stockpiled the virus.

Now for some background for you -- the risks, the reasons, the debate. CNN medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen has this smallpox virus 101 primer for us.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): No president in recent memory has ever had to make a public health decision like this one -- should people be given a dangerous vaccine to protect against smallpox, a disease that doesn't even exist anymore, just because Iraqi President Saddam Hussein is said to have stores of the smallpox virus in a lab. One side of the argument says do not vaccinate. Why? Because we know the vaccine will kill a certain number of people and why kill people when Saddam Hussein may never attack with smallpox?

DR. BOAZ LEV, DIRECTOR-GENERAL, ISRAELI HEALTH MINISTRY: I think if we vaccinating massively right now because we may get smallpox, I think would be a big mistake because, you know, again, it's a risk issue.

COHEN: These are the risks. Out of every million people vaccinated, one or two will die. An additional 15 out of every million who are being vaccinated for the first time will suffer life threatening complications and scores more would feel terrible with fevers and swollen lymph nodes.

But here's the other side of the argument -- start vaccinating now because if Saddam Hussein attacks with smallpox, the results could be devastating. It's a contagious disease that killed 15 million people a year in the 1950s. Smallpox killed one out of every three people it infected and left most of the survivors disfigured. DR. BILL BICKNELL, BOSTON UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH: It was really one of the most frightening, devastating scourges of mankind that ever existed. I mean it would go through a population much like the black plague did, and kill off scores of individuals. And it was a very painful, frightening death.

COHEN: Because of global immunization, smallpox was officially eradicated in 1980. Vaccinations in the U.S. were stopped in 1972. So today, half of all Americans have not been vaccinated and therefore have no immunity. It's unclear whether the other half would still have enough protection from immunizations received decades ago.

DR. CARLOS DEL RIO, EMORY UNIVERSITY: We have a substantially non-immune population and that's a very risky situation if we face a malicious bioterrorist dissemination of smallpox.

COHEN: So who can tell us if the threat of a smallpox attack is strong enough to warrant giving this dangerous vaccine? Only Saddam Hussein. He says he has no biological weapons, but American health officials wonder, can his word be trusted?

Elizabeth Cohen, CNN, Atlanta.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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