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Vaccine-Lite May Help Fight Smallpox

A jab of diluted smallpox vaccine will keep the bugs from getting to you should the United States find itself in the midst of a terrorist-spawned smallpox epidemic, according to a government official.

With only 15 million doses of smallpox vaccine on hand, experiments to determine the effectiveness of a diluted vaccine were necessary. Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Disease said the experiments were “extremely successful” at preventing smallpox. The official results will be released in March.

More than 600 volunteers rolled up their sleeves for the study. Fauci said dilution at 1/10th of the original produced the same immunological response.

The study was carried out on a ‘live’ version of the smallpox vaccine, which is riskier than second- or third-generation vaccines. For every 1 million people vaccinated with a live smallpox vaccine, one or two die and hundreds suffer from complications.

The government has ordered an additional 288 million doses of a second-generation vaccine, and has just launched studies into an even safer, third-generation vaccine.

“The ultimate goal,” Fauci said, “is to produce a non-toxic vaccine that you wouldn’t hesitate to vaccinate anyone with.”

Pregnant women, the immunosuppressed and those infected with HIV should not receive the live vaccine.

By 1972, smallpox had been eradicated in the United States, marking the end of routine vaccinations against the virus. The last naturally occurring case of smallpox was seen in Somalia in 1977.

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