Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Live Today

Interview with Elizabeth Fenn

Aired June 19, 2002 - 14:26   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.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: If you're older than 30 and born in the United States, you probably got a smallpox vaccination when you were very small.

The shots were stopped in 1972, though, and the disease was declared dead and gone in 1980. But in this age of terrorism, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is considering whether to bring the vaccines back.

Elizabeth Fenn is a Duke University historian who's written a book on the subject called, "Pox Americana." She joins us this hour from Durham, North Carolina with her insights.

Elizabeth, thanks for being with us.

ELIZABETH FENN, DUKE UNIV.: Thank you, Kyra.

PHILLIPS: So, what do you think? Bring the vaccines back or not?

FENN: Well, clearly we need to have the vaccine available. The question the CDC is trying to address right now is whether people should be vaccinated, and if so, whom.

PHILLIPS: Now, this was pretty much considered, back when we were talking about in 1979, 1980, when it was eradicated, this was a huge, historical point in healthcare; wasn't it?

FENN: This was probably the greatest public health success in the 20th century.

You need to understand that smallpox had been with humankind for some 3,000 years in an unbroken chain of person to person transmission. So the eradication of smallpox, then, was just an achievement of enormous import.

PHILLIPS: And there's an interesting tidbit: an African slave, back in the 1700s, was very important in identifying a cure for this, right?

FENN: Yes. Early in the 18th century, in the town of Boston, the famous Puritan Divine, Cotton Mather (ph), interviewed his slave, a man named Onesimus (ph), and he asked Onesimus, "Have you ever had smallpox?" And Onesimus (ph) responded by saying, "Well, sort of yes, sort of no."

So Cotton Mather (ph) asked him to elaborate, and Onesimus (ph) described to Mather (ph) a procedure that he had been through as a child on the coast of West Africa, where his father had inoculated him, actually infected him with real smallpox virus.

He came down with a mild case of the disease and then had immunity for life. And this was what was used before Edward Jenner developed a vaccination in 1796.

PHILLIPS: Wow. Fascinating little piece of history.

Now, you observe the current smallpox community, so what's the overall consensus here when talking about this debate of whether Americans should be vaccinated or not?

FENN: Well, it's tough to ascertain.

PHILLIPS: I mean, there's a lot of deadly side effects, right?

FENN: Yes. This is not a vaccination to be taken lightly.

It has -- you actually become infected with a virus, a virus related to small box called vaccinia. So, it's problematic for people who are immune compromised, people who have eczema, pregnant women -- here are lots of complications to this vaccine, so it's not a vaccination to just give out to everybody at the drop of a hat.

PHILLIPS: If there were an outbreak today, how would it be handled?

FENN: Well, until we know -- until the CDC announces their policy tomorrow, we won't know for sure. But the current policy is to do what's called ring vaccination.

In ring vaccination you vaccinate contacts of a person who has taken sick. And any contacts, perhaps, that they might have in sort of concentric rings around the sick person.

PHILLIPS: Do you think people are being educated properly about this disease nowadays?

FENN: Well, I think -- certainly the CDC has done a lot to get the word out to medical professionals. They're constantly spreading the word on how to diagnose this disease.

Now, as to whether the public fully understands smallpox, I think that's a different question. I'm so immersed in the smallpox community that it's often hard for me to say.

PHILLIPS: Well, what happens when there is an outbreak of smallpox? Sort of describe it to us.

FENN: Well, smallpox is transferred usually person to person, so you'd be exposed to the virus, and then you'd go through a 12-day asymptomatic incubation period, during which you cannot transmit the disease.

Then, after 12 days, you experience your first symptoms. This would be headache, back ache, fever, some times malaise. Then, after about three days, you become contagious, and the first pustules erupt. They erupt first in your mouth and throat, and then they erupt across the surface of your skin.

The rash is really, really severe. In some people it can become what's called confluent smallpox, where the sores actually run together in one huge oozing scab.

The course the disease lasts about 30 days, and you're contagious, really, until the last scab falls off, which is after about 30 days.

PHILLIPS: OK. After that description, Elizabeth, I've got to tell you, I'm sort of interested in the vaccine now.

All right, Elizabeth Fenn from Duke University. Thank you so much. Serious subject, no doubt. We will be following the new policy announcement tomorrow, too.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com