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Today First Day Some Will be Able to Get Smallpox Vaccination
Aired January 24, 2003 - 06:22 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Today is the first day some of you will be able to get a smallpox vaccination. Hospital workers in Connecticut will be among the first people in the nation to get inoculated.
But as CNN medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta tells us, there are serious risks involved.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): When Nicole Zimmer was born, smallpox had been eradicated from the world, so she didn't need to be protected. But now in a world threatened with bioterrorism, she felt very vulnerable.
NICOLE ZIMMER, SMALLPOX TRIAL PARTICIPANT: I was very fearful that everything that I had heard about it would actually come true and one day I would wake up and hear that there had been bioterrorism and release of smallpox.
GUPTA: So she got the vaccine by joining a clinical trial at St. Louis University. Routine vaccinations were stopped in the United States in 1972 because the risk of the disease was less than the danger posed by the vaccine itself. Today, those dangers still stand.
DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF HEALTH: And if you're going to allow people, even voluntarily, to get vaccinated, it's important that they truly understand as best as you possibly can communicate to them, that there are risks associated with the vaccine.
GUPTA: In fact, in certain people the vaccine can actually make them sick.
DR. D.A. HENDERSON, HHS: The persons most at risk are those who have a serious skin condition of eczema, people who are being treated for cancer, people who are getting organ transplantation, people who have severe HIV disease.
GUPTA: That's because their immune system is more susceptible to the live virus in the vaccine, so much so that they could even be at risk from someone recently vaccinated. And some of those vaccinated will die.
HENDERSON: We would estimate maybe two to four deaths per million might be likely today, not just one per million.
GUPTA: Two in a million doesn't sound like a lot, unless, of course, you're one of those two. But weighing the risk of a terrorist threat against the risk of an imperfect vaccine may be one of the toughest health care choices we have faced as a nation.
Nicole Zimmer has already made her choice and now our first responders must make theirs.
Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN, Atlanta.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Vaccination>
Aired January 24, 2003 - 06:22 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Today is the first day some of you will be able to get a smallpox vaccination. Hospital workers in Connecticut will be among the first people in the nation to get inoculated.
But as CNN medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta tells us, there are serious risks involved.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): When Nicole Zimmer was born, smallpox had been eradicated from the world, so she didn't need to be protected. But now in a world threatened with bioterrorism, she felt very vulnerable.
NICOLE ZIMMER, SMALLPOX TRIAL PARTICIPANT: I was very fearful that everything that I had heard about it would actually come true and one day I would wake up and hear that there had been bioterrorism and release of smallpox.
GUPTA: So she got the vaccine by joining a clinical trial at St. Louis University. Routine vaccinations were stopped in the United States in 1972 because the risk of the disease was less than the danger posed by the vaccine itself. Today, those dangers still stand.
DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF HEALTH: And if you're going to allow people, even voluntarily, to get vaccinated, it's important that they truly understand as best as you possibly can communicate to them, that there are risks associated with the vaccine.
GUPTA: In fact, in certain people the vaccine can actually make them sick.
DR. D.A. HENDERSON, HHS: The persons most at risk are those who have a serious skin condition of eczema, people who are being treated for cancer, people who are getting organ transplantation, people who have severe HIV disease.
GUPTA: That's because their immune system is more susceptible to the live virus in the vaccine, so much so that they could even be at risk from someone recently vaccinated. And some of those vaccinated will die.
HENDERSON: We would estimate maybe two to four deaths per million might be likely today, not just one per million.
GUPTA: Two in a million doesn't sound like a lot, unless, of course, you're one of those two. But weighing the risk of a terrorist threat against the risk of an imperfect vaccine may be one of the toughest health care choices we have faced as a nation.
Nicole Zimmer has already made her choice and now our first responders must make theirs.
Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN, Atlanta.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Vaccination>
