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Panel warns against danger of smallpox vaccine.
2003 JUL 9 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- A U.S. federal health advisory committee recommended that the Bush administration shouldn't follow through on plans to offer smallpox vaccinations to 10 million emergency workers because of previously unknown and potentially dangerous cardiac side effects.
The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices said on June 17, 2003, that the government should continue the first phase of the smallpox shot program, which seeks to inoculate 450,000 civilian health workers. But it said it would be unwise to expand the program to millions of police officers, firefighters, and other first responders because of the risk of heart inflammation, which the committee called "a new and unanticipated safety concern."
Health officials had previously known that the vaccine, made with a live virus, carries a small risk of life-threatening complications that kill one or two people out of every million vaccinated.
The committee sent a resolution to its parent body, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). CDC director Dr. Julie Gerberding said on June 17 that she had not received the resolution.
"I don't think I hear anything that says, 'Stop the program,'" she said. "The question of how broad the program is something we must pay attention to. It's absolutely clear we must have preparedness in public health and response teams if we have any hope of mitigating a smallpox attack."
Smallpox was declared eradicated from the world in 1980 but U.S. officials believe it still could be used as a bioterror weapon.
Dr. Walter Orenstein, director of the CDC's national immunization program, said several federal agencies probably will have to discuss the resolution ...
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