Smallpox Quotes

“Wikipedia: Smallpox”

“it is clear that it [smallpox vaccines] was not the cause of the disappearance of smallpox from England or Europe.”

“Vaccines are responsible for many global public health successes, such as the eradication of smallpox and significant reductions in other serious infections like polio and measles.”

“During the 1960s and early 1970s health workers applied epidemiologic methods to eradicate smallpox worldwide. This was an achievement of unprecedented proportions for applied epidemiology.”

“Public health and vaccination programs rest on one central story: that they were crucial to the elimination of one of history’s greatest killers, smallpox. As we’ve seen, this is not true.”

“See Peter, “Childhood Immunizations,” 1799, for recognition of this. 16Cf.: “To our knowledge, no one argued that it would be morally wrong to eradicate smallpox through vaccination and other public health measures,””

“In the United States, state policies mandate certain immunizations, including school entry requirements, which cover significant numbers of children. The first school vaccination requirements were enacted in the 1850s to prevent smallpox.”

“Smallpox is said to be “eradicated globally” since late 1977, success that has rendered the vaccine itself normally unnecessary and even inadvisable since the risks associated with this vaccine are greater than the risk of contracting smallpox.”

“One version of smallpox variolation involved drying the material extracted from smallpox lesions before giving it to someone. It was believed the drying caused the material to be less virulent, so Pasteur tried this with the brains and spinal cords of infected rabbits.”

“In a wide-scale emergency in which a vaccine is available or potentially available, a large supply of vaccine would be necessary and needed quickly. Currently, the U.S. Strategic National Stockpile (SNS) has enough smallpox vaccine to vaccinate every person in the country in the event of a bio-weapon attack.”

“In the case of smallpox, PEP is likely to be effective when given within four days of exposure to the virus. Plans provide for the smallpox vaccine to be shipped starting on the first day of an attack, and it would continue to be shipped from the stockpile to the rest of the country as needed in the five to six days following the attack.”

“For millennia, humans have sought and found purpose, solace, values, understanding, and fellowship in religious practices. Buddhist nuns performed variolation against smallpox over 1000 years ago. Since Jenner developed vaccination against smallpox in 1796, some people have objected to and declined vaccination, citing various religious reasons.”

“The first human vaccines against viruses were based on using weaker or attenuated viruses to generate immunity, while not giving the recipient of the vaccine the full-blown illness or, preferably, any symptoms at all. For example, the smallpox vaccine used cowpox, a poxvirus similar enough to smallpox to protect against it, but usually didn’t cause serious illness.”

“The idea of attenuation of virulent infections developed slowly over the course of centuries. Variolation was analogous to the use of small amounts of poison to render one immune to toxic effects. Jenner's use of an animal poxvirus (probably horsepox) to prevent smallpox was essentially based on the idea that an agent virulent for animals might be attenuated in humans.”

“We used to think, for example, that smallpox vaccine gave you a permanent immunity just like the disease does. Actually it doesn't. It falls. ...
The same with yellow fever vaccine. I don't know how many years. That's never been quite worked out, although it's a longer-lasting immunity than just giving a dead antigen.”

“Individual versus public health priorities were first argued in the U.S. Supreme Court more than 100 years ago. In Jacobson versus Massachusetts, a Cambridge resident refused to be vaccinated for smallpox, because he believed the law violated his right to care for his own body how he knew best. The Court rejected Jacobson’s challenge. This seminal 1905 ruling has served as the foundation for state actions to limit individual liberties to protect the public’s health..”

“The history of vaccines did not begin with Jenner's smallpox vaccine. It will not end with the recent vaccines against the novel coronavirus, which caused the COVID-19 pandemic. The history of vaccines begins before the first vaccine, with an immunizing procedure called "inoculation" by some and "variolation" by others. According to researchers, inoculation with materials from smallpox lesions to trigger immunity against smallpox dates back to antiquity in China. And the first written account of the procedure was written in 1549.”

“One of the first accounts of variolation — an ancient form of smallpox prevention — was from an 11th century Buddhist nun, who blew ground smallpox scabs into the noses of her patients.”

“Judaism traditionally expects certain actions of its believers to maintain health. Pikuakh nefesh, acting to save one’s own or another’s life, is a primary value, a positive commandment (mitzvah aseh). Judaic principles emphasize the community benefits of disease prevention in a manner superior to individual preference, based on scriptures such as Leviticus 19:16 (Table 1C) that counsel not to stand idly by while a neighbor is in trouble. Jewish scholars applied this directive to encourage smallpox vaccination in previous eras.”

“The success of vaccines remains impressive despite the fact that all vaccines themselves present health risks of one kind or another.11 The health risks associated with vaccinations have been the basis of rare but sometimes vigorous opposition to vaccinations at least from the beginning of this century (in Jacobson v. Massachusetts, concerning mandatory smallpox vaccinations) and have reappeared more recently, leading, for example to the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986, designed to compensate individuals for reactions to federally approved and, in some cases, legally mandated vaccines.”