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American Morning

Vaccination Plan

Aired November 26, 2002 - 08:42   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.


BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: CNN has learns more details now of the White House's smallpox vaccination plans. In the next few weeks, President Bush expected to announce that plan, and then explain how the White House officials reached this decision, and it is a big one, too. The plan has a downside. It could be fatal for some.
For more, Elizabeth Cohen, again, sitting in for Dr. Sanjay Gupta this week.

Good to see you, Elizabeth. Good morning to you.

And certainly this was a lot of pull apparently to come up with this plan. What your finding out?

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely.

What I'm finding out. Bill, is that some people are saying that this is the biggest public health decision that any recent president has had to make. Here's what is at stake. The question is -- do you give a very dangerous vaccine, a vaccine that can kill, to protect against smallpox, a disease that doesn't exist in the world anymore, just because there is the threat that Saddam Hussein might use it as a biological weapon?

I spoke with an administration official yesterday, and this official outlined what the president's plan is expected to be, expected to be announced in the coming weeks. Let's look at what the plan is going to be. It's expected it will be recommended 500,000 hospital workers get the immunization first. This would be completely voluntary, and the administration expects that up to half of all hospitals will not want their workers to be immunized because it is so dangerous.

The second step would then be seven to 10 million first responders. They would be more health workers, police, EMS, fire, people of that nature. Then finally, the vaccine would be available to the public if they wanted to be in a study of the vaccine, but not recommended.

Again, the administration would not recommend that the public get it, but they would say, look if you really want to get the smallpox vaccine, you can go ahead and try to join a study.

Of course, there are many people who shouldn't get the smallpox vaccine for all sorts of health reasons. Let's take a look at some of the side effects of this vaccine because it can be very bad. For every million people vaccinated they'd expect to see one to two deaths and also for every million people vaccinated. And also for every million people people vaccinated, 15 people would get life-threatening illnesses. So this is no flu shot, this is a serious vaccine. However, this is the plan, what I've just outlined here is all if there is not attacks. That's what they would do in the coming months. If there were to be a smallpox attack, and if there were enough cases of smallpox in the United States, then certainly a mass vaccination plan, vaccinating everybody in the country would be considered -- Bill.

HEMMER: Knowing the seriousness of it, and well noted in your report right there, how difficult was this for the White House to reach and arrive at this decision?

COHEN: This official told me it was an anguishing decision. decision. It's been agonizing to make the decision. They've been thinking about it since September 11th last year, and it's taken them this long because they've had to debate both sides of it. Many people who've been making this decision with the administration have changed their minds over time.

Let's talk about this one person and how the decision affected him. What he said is, I have been agonizing over this and lost sleep over this, people will die. What he means is that if you give the vaccine to millions of people, some of them will die. But he added, if there were a smallpox attack in this country, far more people would die. When smallpox infects people, one out of three will die -- that's a third of all people will die -- and most of the survivors are disfigured -- Bill.

HEMMER: Big-time issue. Elizabeth Cohen, thanks.

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






Aired November 26, 2002 - 08:42   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: CNN has learns more details now of the White House's smallpox vaccination plans. In the next few weeks, President Bush expected to announce that plan, and then explain how the White House officials reached this decision, and it is a big one, too. The plan has a downside. It could be fatal for some.
For more, Elizabeth Cohen, again, sitting in for Dr. Sanjay Gupta this week.

Good to see you, Elizabeth. Good morning to you.

And certainly this was a lot of pull apparently to come up with this plan. What your finding out?

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely.

What I'm finding out. Bill, is that some people are saying that this is the biggest public health decision that any recent president has had to make. Here's what is at stake. The question is -- do you give a very dangerous vaccine, a vaccine that can kill, to protect against smallpox, a disease that doesn't exist in the world anymore, just because there is the threat that Saddam Hussein might use it as a biological weapon?

I spoke with an administration official yesterday, and this official outlined what the president's plan is expected to be, expected to be announced in the coming weeks. Let's look at what the plan is going to be. It's expected it will be recommended 500,000 hospital workers get the immunization first. This would be completely voluntary, and the administration expects that up to half of all hospitals will not want their workers to be immunized because it is so dangerous.

The second step would then be seven to 10 million first responders. They would be more health workers, police, EMS, fire, people of that nature. Then finally, the vaccine would be available to the public if they wanted to be in a study of the vaccine, but not recommended.

Again, the administration would not recommend that the public get it, but they would say, look if you really want to get the smallpox vaccine, you can go ahead and try to join a study.

Of course, there are many people who shouldn't get the smallpox vaccine for all sorts of health reasons. Let's take a look at some of the side effects of this vaccine because it can be very bad. For every million people vaccinated they'd expect to see one to two deaths and also for every million people vaccinated. And also for every million people people vaccinated, 15 people would get life-threatening illnesses. So this is no flu shot, this is a serious vaccine. However, this is the plan, what I've just outlined here is all if there is not attacks. That's what they would do in the coming months. If there were to be a smallpox attack, and if there were enough cases of smallpox in the United States, then certainly a mass vaccination plan, vaccinating everybody in the country would be considered -- Bill.

HEMMER: Knowing the seriousness of it, and well noted in your report right there, how difficult was this for the White House to reach and arrive at this decision?

COHEN: This official told me it was an anguishing decision. decision. It's been agonizing to make the decision. They've been thinking about it since September 11th last year, and it's taken them this long because they've had to debate both sides of it. Many people who've been making this decision with the administration have changed their minds over time.

Let's talk about this one person and how the decision affected him. What he said is, I have been agonizing over this and lost sleep over this, people will die. What he means is that if you give the vaccine to millions of people, some of them will die. But he added, if there were a smallpox attack in this country, far more people would die. When smallpox infects people, one out of three will die -- that's a third of all people will die -- and most of the survivors are disfigured -- Bill.

HEMMER: Big-time issue. Elizabeth Cohen, thanks.

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