Family Recalls Smallpox Claiming Mom, Says Vaccinations Should Resume.(Brief Article)

2002 JAN 9 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- Billie Raney was 21 when she stood on the sidewalk with her three grown sisters, watching morticians drag their mother out of the family home in Elsa, Texas, still wrapped in the sheets in which she had succumbed to smallpox.

Lillian Barber, then 43, was the only person to die in the last smallpox outbreak in the United States, which infected eight known victims in the Rio Grande Valley in 1949.

The survivors are now retired pastors, tractor salesmen, grandmothers and grandfathers. For decades, their names were shrouded in aliases appearing in medical literature.

"I wish it was someone else's memory," said Billie Raney, 73. "But at least we're willing to talk about it and make people aware."

Since September 11, the disease that was declared eradicated has emerged as possible terrorists' threat. The U.S. House of Representatives has passed a $2.9 billion bioterrorism response package and the Senate is considering an even bigger package. The House bill includes $1 billion to expand national stockpiles of medicine and vaccine. President Bush has proposed buying 300 million doses of smallpox vaccine - one for every American.

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Georgia, a single case of smallpox anywhere in the world would be considered a global health threat. When the routine vaccinations ceased in 1972, some members of the Barber family questioned doctors and school officials.

"We believed that smallpox vaccinations never should have been stopped," Billie Raney said. "None of the grandchildren even received it. Of course, we knew the severity of the disease."