Who else has a smallpox scar?

I thought everyone did, but then I found out that those born after the '70s didn't get smallpox vaccinations. After a little bit of research, I also found out that those of us who have been vaccinated from smallpox are likely to survive if there is some sort of bio-weapon used. Guess that means that old folks will live. Anybody know anything about this?

...and I never got a smallpox vaccination. I was born right after smallpox vaccinations but before chickenpox vaccinations became common.

If you'd had small pox itself you wouldn't be around to discuss it. That disease wiped out 90-95% of the population of the Americas during the sixteenth century.

I have a vaccination scar. Some younguns don't because schools quit vaccinating as small pox became extinct in the US. There was been no recorded case in decades.

The native population of the United States had no resistance, whereas the Europeans had lived with the disease for many years and had developed some resistance.

immune to any disease their mother ever had for a short time, and besides, by the time the Europeans went to the Americas, their population was made up almost entirely of survivors of smallpox and/or the descendants of people who had survived smallpox.

Smallpox was one reason that African slaves were brought to the Americas. Unlike the Native Americans, who had no resistance to Old World diseases and died in appalling numbers from things like measles, the Africans had long been in contact with Europe and had experienced diseases like measles, smallpox, and others.

The Hawaiians suffered a fate similar to the Native Americans. Before the Europeans came, the Hawaiians, isolated for centuries, didn't even get the flu.

I remember the Public Health Nurse saying it wasn't necessary anymore. Most people my age have them though.

The vaccination must have been done when I was very young because I have no recollection of the process. How was the vaccination done? It leaves a round scar...mine is very faint.

I've seen some scars that are very prominent.

(not much) and I got the vaccine- and though it is hard to see - I still have the scar...

we'll all die. :D Just thought I'd add a little cheer to your night.

but what little research I have done suggests that those of us who have been vaccinated have retained enough immunizition <sp?> to prevent us from dying. That is, we have enough immunity; we may become sick but we won't die. As compared to the young ones who have NO immunity. Like I said, some research.

I was only repeating what I heard on the news. Though they did have doctors discussing it.

It IS still good partially at least..This is one thing the news hushed up in the beginning of the scare.
To make yourself immune to smallpox get some of the fluid from a smallpox blister off of someone who has it, scratch your skin put smallpox goo in it and you will have vaccinated yourself. Once this info got out..the scare lost it's scariness,and the alert was forgotten.

http://www.seercom.com/bluto/science/2/immunoweb/bad/invaders/viruses/smallpox/prevention.html

I am not about to fool around with any small pox toxins. That's a way to get dead fast. If doctors start offering new vaccinations, I'll look into it.

before there were vaccinations .

If there was no way to stop it,we wouldn't be here.Indians did this and it saved thier butts considering the US govt was giving them infected blankets to kill them. So they could seize the land.

The very first vaccines were smallpox goop rubbed into a scratch.

Also cowpox helps smallpox immunity I hear too.

still, no one has active immunization scars to start picking. It's all a bit gross to contemplate.

... vaccinations for smallpox were discontinued in the `70s, because there were virtually no cases of it anywhere in the world after that time and the chances of adverse reactions to the immunization exceeded the chance of getting the disease. However, everyone who gets older lives with an immune system which diminishes in strength over time. Eventually, cells retain just residual amounts of resistance to the disease, so, even the elderly could succumb to a new, strong smallpox strain because their immunity to it had been weakened over time.

That says a lot about the value of sensible vaccination. Says just as much about the evil in men's minds....

are you a medical doctor?

... I just read... a lot, about a great many things. Always fascinated by epidemiology and its related subjects. It's like medical detective stories, Sam Spade with a stethoscope. :)

undergroundpanther's idea of scratching open someone's smallpox vaccination scar and using the toxin. Doesn't seem like a great idea to me.

Another and very important change in the disease incidence in eighteenth-century Britain...was instead a result of deliberate resort to smallpox inocculation. The practice was introduced into England in 1721...The method was to transfer the infection by introducing material from a smallpox pustule into a slight wound made in the patient's skin. Occasionally the patient developed a severe case of smallpox from such treatment, and some died. But usually the symptoms were slight - a few score of pox only; and immunity proved equivalent to that resulting from contracting the disease naturally.

-Plagues and Peoples, William H. McNeill, pg. 255.

On edit: I misread your post and didn't realize you said "smallpox vaccination scar". I concur with Punpirate's assessment below.

I think we can do something a bit more sophisticated.
People die from vaccinations as it is. I'd prefer to have mine carefully controlled.

...which is similar to smallpox but does not cause such severe symptoms in humans. Smallpox vaccine; Cowpox

-SM

Edited to fix link

People still died or caught smallpox.Even in the trial runs that are more recent. There is no way out of this risk.
You are putting a virus into your body, so there is ALWAYS a risk that it willnot work or it will infect you.This risk is part of getting immunized with anything.But your chances are better for suvival if your body can be taught to recognize a threat and give you immunity rather than catching it full blown and having more of a chance of death.

... problems these days with transfer of blood products, introducing someone else's antibodies into one's body would cause an immune response to that other person's antibodies, not to the virus. The attenuated virus used for the initial inoculation would be long, long gone by now.

The virus would have to be active and attenuated for it to work as intended.

Cheers.

as a child of the '50s, my mother deliberately exposed us to mumps, measles and chicken pox. Just to immunize us. My mum was (and is) someone who understood the value of immunization. (She got her degree from Yale in surgical nursing). Her thought was, once you got these diseases, you wouldn't get others. The scariest thing that happened to me was when we were tested to go over to Germany. I got the tuburculois test and came out positive. My mum figured I must have received the germ from her when she was pregnant w/me. So I had a pos. reaction. And, boy did that hurt! My whole arm was completely swollen for several days.

I hope that the research you talk about is true and that some how we passed the protection along to our children through pregnancy and or breast feeding, and then they hopefully to their kids. That's quite a stretch I know, but a least it's a little comfort,maybe.

a vaccination cause my parents didn't believe in them (my mother had a bad reaction to the one she had as a youngster), guess I am doomed. x(

I was born in early 30's and you had to have one before you went to school. My dear sister told me the needle would go in one side and come out the other so I never for got how the doctor had to catch me and wrap me up in a sheet to do it and how mad may mother was as my sister laughed like crazy.

my mother was the one who gave all us kids the needle. I was an army brat and my mum was the nurse. 500 kids lined up and there was my mum. Boy, was I popular. Not.

Yeow!
I too have a smallpox scar from the age of 4...Now I know why I hate getting injections..because at 4 I had the puniest little arms!!!

That was a big deal in the 50's. I remember getting that shot.

he was born in WI, me in TX

he would definitly survive smallpox before me, I've already been given such a high dose of Cipro (antibiotic) that it would be ineffective, and I understand it works the best against smallpox. (I took it for over a month after my appendix came out and I got an infection)

against viruses. You would need an anti-viral agent. Antibiotics only work against bacteria.

guess he was mistaken.

anthrax scare. That was on the news all the time. Then again, maybe smallpox causes secondary infections that might be bacterial in nature & responsive to antibiotics.

Just can't remember how old I was...

I found a cousin up in Illinois who has told me a ittle about my one great granduncle and his wife.

They only had one daughter to survive into adulthood. But I knew they had a little boy who died.

Roger told me that a traveling doctor gave him a "smallpox immunization", but that he had an adverse reaction or soemthing, and died. This was probably around the 1880s or so.

I hate to think we're going back to those type of situations.

FSC

MrG and I are like Sneetches...we have stars upon ours. :hi:

From what I understand is that to a degree, there may be some protection to an extent based upon genetic factors. In historical terms for example, those with a European ancestry had exposure to it in our historical genetic pasts and when the disease hit the Americas, it killed far fewer whereas the native Americans did not and were more likely to die or get the illness more severely. I'm not sure of the possible genetic components (I hope it's something as both my parents were vaccinated), but it's something I heard once. Any infectious disease experts in the house?

In all honesty though, I fear something like this with my own government far more than anyone else.

My son was born in 1972 and smallpox was no longer being given routinely to children. I asked my GP to order it for my son. He did and so my son waa vaccinated in either '73 or '74.

When my daughter was born in '79 that option was no longer available.

Of course after all these years it's very faint.

I was born in '71 and he was born in '64. He didn't attend kindergarten, so probably by the time he started school, they weren't required anymore.

I was born in '64 and didn't attend kindergarten, but I have one.

Interesting....

But apparently I was too young to remember getting vaccinated. Anyone know how the vaccine was applied to cause such a scar?

It is true they stopped in the '70s, as smallpox was eradicated. I also had polio vaccine shots, and that is now eradicated.

However, the U.S., Russia and perhaps a couple other countries KEPT smallpox and polio in lab populations as "research' germs. Right. Bastards. Had the lab populations been wiped out, there would be no smallpox or polio today. As it is, they are potential weapons. And an outbreak is as easy as escaped germs from the lab.

the smallpox vaccine was discontinued, but polio vaccines are still given??

Both my boys have had polio vaccines, one orally and the other with a shot.

I have one.

They were born in the mid-fifties. I was born in '76 so I didn't get that vaccine.

:bounce:

it has faded a bit over the years but I can still make out the needle pricks. :D

I had a second one in 59 when I went to Europe. Back then you had to have one to go overseas, along with other more icky things.

I had no reaction to the second one at all. Dr said it was because my immunity was still good from the first one.

But I thought I heard the old vaccination won't help if smallpox is released on the world. I don't know what the truth is.

but my husband does not - he was born later than I was and they were no longer immunizing folks for it.

Legend has it it took nearly 6 people at the Naval hospital in San Diego to hold my 2 yr old ass down to give it to me. But then again, my mom is fond of exaggeration. ;)

in 1967. There were still occasional epidemics in Eastern Europe at the time, the last one in Yugoslavia, I believe. You had to have a vaccination certificate to be allowed into Western European countries or back into the U.S.

By the time I went to Japan in 1977, I was told that smallpox vaccination was no longer required unless one was traveling to a country where it still existed, which by that time was just a few countries in Africa.

Left arm

...when he realized he had a smallpox vaccination scar and I didn't. (He was born '65, me in '69) I think he actually lost some sleep thinking if there was a resurgence he might live and I might die. Somewhere in the back of his head he knew that the vaccinations had been discontinued long ago, but it's like the reality hit him or something.

(He's a bit of a worrier, yeah.)