- SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) -
The American Medical Association said on Tuesday it was not in favor of
an immediate mass U.S. smallpox vaccination program, saying the potential
threat of bioterror attack did not warrant inoculating every American
against
the disease.
-
- The AMA's governing House of Delegates, meeting in San
Francisco, instead asked the U.S. government to evaluate the risks and
benefits of mass vaccination while continuing to plan for a program should
the need arise.
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- "The science would not indicate that mass
vaccination
is the appropriate thing to do," Dr. John Nelson, a member of the
AMA's board of trustees, told a news conference.
-
- The U.S. government last month ordered additional
smallpox
vaccine doses to build a stockpile large enough to vaccinate every American
against the disease, but officials said they were not planning to launch
a mass immunization program.
-
- Acambis Plc and Baxter International Inc. jointly will
produce the new shots for $428 million, with delivery expected by next
fall.
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- U.S. health officials accelerated efforts to prepare
for a smallpox attack after the Sept. 11 attacks that killed about 3,900
people and as five people died in a mysterious rash of anthrax attacks
starting in early October.
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- Smallpox was eradicated more than two decades ago, but
experts fear it could resurface in a biological attack. Easily spread from
person to person, it kills about 30 percent of its victims and leaves
others
disfigured. There is no effective treatment once someone falls ill, but
giving a vaccine in the days immediately following exposure can prevent
illness.
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- POTENTIAL DEATHS FROM ADVERSE
REACTION
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- The AMA, the nation's largest and most influential
doctors'
group, noted that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was
against
a mass inoculation program in part out of fears that some people -- roughly
one in every million -- could die from adverse reaction to the smallpox
vaccine.
-
- "If you vaccinate the whole country, you could have
as many as 300 Americans who would die as a result of that mass vaccination
itself," said Dr. Ron Davis, another AMA board member.
-
- Instead, Davis said the AMA supported study of
alternative
vaccination strategies, such as immunizing "rings" of people
around smallpox cases once any have been detected.
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- "This is the strategy that worked in eradicating
smallpox from the world back in the 1960's and 1970's," he
said.
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- AMA officials said the nation's medical community was
still carefully evaluating the potential risk posed by smallpox and other
bioterror agents, and was working hard to educate doctors about diseases
that many have never seen in their professional careers.
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- But they stressed that the current information did not
warrant a crash smallpox vaccination program.
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- "Let's make sure that science rules the day,"
Nelson said. "We need to make sure that we maintain as much calm as
possible."
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