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Comment by qwerty456127 | Hacker News Reader

I have always felt angry they stopped smallpox vaccination before I was born. Now all the boomers are immune and we are not.

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The thing about public health is that it's a game of averages. Smallpox vaccination, because of the specific details of the vaccine itself, has significant potential side effects well beyond any other modern commonly-administered vaccine. These side effects can be permanently disabling, or in some cases even cause smallpox-like illness itself. When smallpox was widespread, the downside of vaccination (side effect risks) was much smaller than the downside of not vaccinating (dying of smallpox). Now that smallpox has been eradicated, the calculation is changed - on average the damage that will be done by side-effects in a wide-spread vaccination campaign are outweighed by the extremely small risk caused by not vaccinating.

That leaves the question of whether a better (safer) smallpox vaccine could be developed - I don't know enough about medical science to know if that's feasible, but even if it is it's likely not worth the cost and effort to develop a new vaccine for a disease that is no longer really a threat.

> That leaves the question of whether a better (safer) smallpox vaccine could be developed.

I found this last week in Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smallpox_vaccine#MVA-BN is a new non-replicating vaccine available since 2013.

The smallpox vaccine is no joke, and cause actually hurt people with fairly common skin conditions like eczema:

https://www.aad.org/public/diseases/eczema/childhood/health-...

When my unit was vaccinated before Iraq the docs were concerned for me. I had to take precautions.

>skin conditions like eczema

Terrible terrible....but then let's go to iraq.

Wasn’t my choice to go to Iraq, and honestly as a 22 year old kid I had no idea what was going on in the world, I didn’t watch or read the news, I didn’t know what politics was except a vague conception of my parents voting habits… I was focused on surfing, finding some beer, and trying to find a girl. Being there changed all that.

Crazy when i was 12 i already knew it's wrong to invade other country's...

>Wasn’t my choice to go to Iraq,

Ah they forced you? Land of the free?

No Girls and surfing in Iraq right?

Yes. They did force me. That’s how the military works. If you’d like to express anger over this, I’d suggest starting with Dick Cheney and George Bush, and not popping off on a low ranking enlisted person.

Ah that's new to me that the US has mandatory military service after Vietnam.

However, sorry for being angry toward you. You are just partially (a really small part) responsible for the war.

I joined in 1999. There was no war going on and the last military conflict the US was in was peacekeeping in Somalia or the Balkans. I was 17 when I signed up, and like many low income people saw it as the only way to pay for college, because I couldn’t afford any other route.

Once you sign up, refusing orders will get you sent to military prison plus a dishonorable/OTA discharge.

I’m glad you’ve lived the privileged life that has allowed you to think that this was some ascetic choice, like picking a school or an outfit, but this was the only way I could figure out how to exist because I had no money and no skills, and no help.

I’m not sure what you’re trying to accomplish, but you’re punching down. Never a good look. You have no idea the burden put on people like me, lower class that have no options because capitalism has ripped away most sources of a better life, and then sold at 17 a way out, you just have to offer to serve for a chance for it. Then you end up in a war. Sounds like you haven’t had to make a hard choice in your entire life.

>I’m glad you’ve lived the privileged life that has allowed you to think that this was some ascetic choice

I had to do military service too (Switzerland) so you don't talk to a complete stranger -> military prison etc.

But you had the chance not to do it...just saing, and 1999 what war was then? Kosovo conflict.

Military service in Switzerland... lol, I'll repeat my previous comment, you've never made a hard choice in your life. Living in one of the richest countries in the world that is famously neutral and cosplaying as a soldier, what a joke.

Was vaccinated before deploying to Korea and that was not fun. That thing itched like crazy. But then it was nice when we deployed to Iraq and everyone else had to get the vaccine and I didn't :)

Why not just get your smallpox vaccination? Hint it's 35 swiss franks. ...when you visit Switzerland (in the tropical institute) ;)

afaik no smallpox vaccine is currently approved in Switzerland (according to https://www.nau.ch/politik/bundeshaus/affenpocken-swissmedic...)

Why do you link a monkeypox article?

That is smallpox:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smallpox

And that's the vaccine in 1980:

https://collection.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/objects/co14865...

Your article means that the smallpox vaccine is not approved for monkeypox...please read at least your article.

https://www.bag.admin.ch/bag/de/home/krankheiten/krankheiten...

>>Unser Land verfügt zudem über einen Notfallplan (Isolierung der Erkrankten, Quarantäne, Impfung exponierter Personen und Dekontamination von Gegenständen) sowie über eine genügende Menge eines Pockenimpfstoffes der 1. Generation, der für die Impfung einzelner Bevölkerungsgruppen bis hin zur Gesamtbevölkerung ausreicht. Zudem werden derzeit antivirale Medikamente entwickelt.

>>Our country also has an emergency plan (isolation of the sick, quarantine, vaccination of exposed persons and decontamination of objects) and a sufficient quantity of a 1st generation smallpox vaccine for vaccination of individual population groups up to the entire population. In addition, antiviral drugs are currently being developed.

Because the article talks about the theoretical effectiveness of smallpox vaccines against monkeypox but that no vaccine (smallpox or monkeypox) is currently approved in Switzerland (the smallpox vaccine was approved in the past but is not anymore since its eradication)

Vaccine does not need to be re-approved. If it is approved it stays like that, if nothing happens, but it's not approved for monkey-pox.

And this is the vaccine:

Smallpox (J07BX)

https://www.swissmedic.ch/dam/swissmedic/de/dokumente/marktu...

The smallpox vaccine is still administered (but not mandatory anymore) and that report is from 2015, it's about side effect from vaccines.

Side Effects = administered

And why is that if it is "eradicated"?

https://www.forbes.com/sites/brucelee/2016/08/28/smallpox-co...

>>Ein Heilmittel gegen die Pocken existiert nicht. Lediglich eine vorbeugende Schutzimpfung ist möglich.

>>There is no cure for smallpox. Only preventive vaccination is possible.

https://tropeninstitut.de/krankheiten-a-z/pocken

A friend of mine got one ~2 years ago for traveling to Mongolia.

So what it boils down to: The old (1st generation) vaccine is still being held in storage but currently not available to the general public (says https://www.bag.admin.ch/bag/de/home/krankheiten/krankheiten..., FAQ number 10). It could be made available in case of an outbreak. There is no approval for any of the more modern vaccines.

> please read at least your article

Please refrain from accusations of someone not having read the article, it's unconstructive and against site guidelines.

I don't know how you come up with a different reading of the nau.ch article. It states (even though it's an inaccuracy as there are still some 1st generation vaccines available as we figured out):

"Der Pockenimpfstoff gilt als erster der Geschichte. Nur nützt das die Schweiz in der aktuellen Situation mit immer mehr Fällen von Affenpocken nicht. Denn hierzulande ist kein Impfstoff zugelassen."

It originally had a higher rate of side effects than many other vaccines because it was a locally replicating live virus. This is why vaccinated people typically have scars because it would create a local infection and a lesion on the arm. In some rare cases this would go systemic and result in a full scale infection, so when it was locally eradicated the mass vaccination program ended in the US (1972).

Apparently the modern vaccine uses an attenuated virus so it’s less likely to cause issues. I assume that’s what is used if you elect to take it for travel in Switzerland.

If the smallpox vaccine has not changed a lot in the meantime... Probability of death: 1 in 1 million. Probability of death for infants: 5 in 1 million.

Still not something to take a risk.

[Comparatively, if this source is not mistaken: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/safety/ad... for Covid vaccine 5 deaths per 1 million]

correction: all the boomers are probably immune.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16804475/

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