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Article: Smallpox vaccine: does it work?
- Article from:
- Townsend Letter for Doctors and Patients
- Article date:
- February 1, 2003
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2003 The Townsend Letter Group. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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The debate over use of the smallpox vaccine has focused on the risks of side effects and deaths caused by the vaccine, as well as the problems associated with the vaccine's outmoded technology, but these discussions have ignored questions about the vaccine's effectiveness. Authorities insist that smallpox vaccine was responsible for eradication of one of humanity's greatest scourges (WHO, 1980). It may therefore come as a tremendous surprise that throughout the nearly 200-year history of smallpox vaccination, thoughtflul physicians and a veritable army of citizens doubted that the vaccine worked at all.
Four factors have contributed to skepticism of smallpox ...