Vaccinated Smallpox

With the numerous health risks coupled with the need for extremely regulated quarantine, what, exactly, forced Rhode Island’s hand into legalizing the smallpox inoculation procedure? Rhode Island’s general assembly wrote that “There is great danger that the inhabitants of the United Colonies may, by the prevalence of that distemper, be rendered incapable of defense at a time when their safety may depend upon their most vigorous exertions.” The smallpox disease, combined with the risk of an epidemic posed such a threat to the American rebel forces that colony’s official legislative bodies deemed it necessary to intervene. And this was at a time when the founding fathers of the United States believed that any form of government should play virtually

The history of vaccinations begin with Edward Jenner, the country doctor from Gloucestershire who found, growing on cows, a nearly harmless virus the protected people from smallpox. Jenner’s vaccine was safer, more reliable, and more durable than variolation, and it is still the only vaccine to have eliminated its reason for being-in 1980, when the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the disease extinct. For nearly a century and a half, smallpox was the only vaccine routinely administered, and it saved millions of lives . But the controversy that marked the return of the vaccine, amid bioterrorism hysteria in 2002, was only the latest twist in the remarkable, mysterious life of vaccines.

Despite smallpox’s long history of harm, killing nearly 300 million people in the twentieth century alone, it is now considered eradicated thanks to a vaccine and vaccination program lead by the World Health Organization. Because of its eradication,

Unlike HIV or other global viruses, Ebola is until this day geographically restrained, facilitating the deduction that the responsible originated from West Africa or returned from areas confirmed as danger zones. The list of suspects is indeed rather short: it amounts to Western Africans travelling to America and U.S. citizen contaminated in the same region. The latter category is, as cases in the western world indicate, consisted virtually exclusively of humanitarian helpers and health personal having been in contact with Ebola patients. Albeit these categories are subject to broad generalizations, they are the fruit of the apparent human condition to investigate, regardless of the rationality behind the reasoning. Seale baptised these generalisations “health imagined communities” (Seale, 2007, p. 92). Lupton emphasized on the experience that constructed risk communities don’t differ from real risk communities as much in their consequences as they do in their

Infectious epidemics and pandemics have happened all through mankind's history. “They remain the prime cause of death worldwide and will not be conquered during our lifetimes.” The flu of 1918 was one of the deadliest epidemics in history. “It infected an estimated 500 million people worldwide–about one-third of the planet’s population at the time–and killed an estimated 20 million to 50 million victims. More than 25 percent of the U.S. population became sick, and some 675,000 Americans died during the pandemic.” No one knew how the virus spread, there were no antibiotics to fight it, and no flu shots to prevent it. In the final year of World War I, it struck terror in the hearts of people all across Europe and left more death in its wake than the combined military actions of the combatants. “It killed more Americans in a few months than World War I, World War II, the Korean War, and the

Diseases can be preventable and curable but many still manage to devastate on international scales, whether it was during the Middle Ages or today. These illnesses are sometimes underrated in their effects on the human race where symptoms can range from minimal to down-right devastating and painful. No matter where it started, they can bring devastating effects to the surrounding area. When someone wants to know about a disease, they want to know where it came from, it's symptoms, and how it affected the community in which it appeared. The Black Death, Ebola, and the Zika virus are examples of large-scale illnesses that vary in all three of these topics but still managed to threaten humans on a bigger scale than expected. Diseases like the

Jenner’s vaccine was so successful that the World Health Organization declared the word “entirely eradicated” of human smallpox on December 9, 1979 (Spier, 2015). As a consequence of this monumental success and other successes like it, people forget how deadly diseases like this can be and fail to attribute their lack of a crippling disease to vaccinations. Other diseases that have been considered eliminated in a similar manner to smallpox are: diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, polio, measles, mumps, rubella, hepatitis A & B, yellow fever (Spier, 2015).

The plague was the most devastating pandemic in human history, killing around 80-200 million people mostly throughout Europe, leaving most people back then wondering how they and others got sick and died. “Evidence available from rural continental Europe suggests a slow spread of human mortality across trade and travel routes, patterns consistent” (Carmichael 3), until after multiple inventions such as printing, word spread of this murderer, preventing more deaths and to treat those affected. This disease is known throughout the world as the Black Death and still lingers to this day, corrupting individuals in areas of poverty who can’t find shelter from this relentless killer. Even with government surveillance and modern technology and medicine, to this day we can’t 100% cure those affected by the plague, but modern antibiotics make this disease less deadly.

Imagine a quick spreading rash throughout the entire body, leaving not a single space behind; every opening and crevice in your body, including your mouth and eyes covered in painful bumps accompanied by high fever and severe body aches. Flat red spots transforming into fluid-filled lesions and soon oozing out yellow pus, evidently emitting a pungent odor to anyone who dared get close. The live virus present in the darkening crusty scabs that would soon fall off only to leave behind a deep pitted scarred filled complexion on anyone who was fortunate enough to survive. These scars would be forever remembered as the hallmark for the smallpox epidemic which tormented the world for over 3,000 years. (Riedel “Deadly Diseases”).

Vaccines have been used to prevent diseases for centuries, and have saved countless lives of children and adults. The smallpox vaccine was invented as early as 1796, and since then the use of vaccines has continued to protect us from countless life threatening diseases such as polio, measles, and pertussis. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (2010) assures that vaccines are extensively tested by scientist to make sure they are effective and safe, and must receive the approval of the Food and Drug Administration before being used. “Perhaps the greatest success story in public health is the reduction of infectious diseases due to the use of vaccines” (CDC, 2010). Routine immunization has eliminated smallpox from the globe and

Disease has existed for as long as life has, but even the most primitive form of vaccination – variolation – was only invented around 1000 AD by the Chinese to cure smallpox (NHS, 2014). Since then, of course, vaccination has advanced tremendously and many diseases are now no longer a danger because of it. However there are still hundreds of diseases that cause trouble in the world despite vaccinations, and some diseases that have no vaccinations at all. Rabies (lyssavirus) is a severe viral disease that affects the nervous system and is deadly if not treated. Fortunately, a vaccine does exist, created by Louis Pasteur in the 1880s (NHS, 2014) and improved in the 1960s, but still today over 55 000 people die of this disease

Measles. Polio. Smallpox. The flu. Imagine the world when vaccines were yet to be created. There was a time when people lived in fear of dreadful diseases. Thanks to the introduction of vaccines, many of those devastating diseases have been nearly or completely wiped out. Despite these results, for some people, the question remains: should we vaccinate? Today, I will be discussing the development of the first vaccine, global benefits, and the anti-vaccine movement.

Ever since the invention of the first smallpox vaccine more than two centuries ago, there has been plenty of discussion over the morality, ethics, effectiveness, and safety of vaccination and immunization. It has recently been argued whether laws should be introduced that make some or all vaccines mandatory for all children (Salmon 47). Parents, health care specialists, nurses, teachers and children all have an important stake in this issue. Parents argue that it is they who should have the ultimate decision-making right on whether or not to vaccinate their children. Nurses and health care officials oppose that view on the grounds that by making vaccination rates in children incomplete, we expose all children to contracting the vaccine-preventable diseases. If this is a risk some parents are willing to take, but others face unwillingly, there is obviously a complication.

The first vaccination for smallpox was discovered in 1796 by Edward Jenner; since then there have been arguments over the morality, ethics, effectiveness, and safety of all vaccinations. A vaccination is a killed or weakened organism that is used to create immunity that protects you from a particular disease without causing the suffering from the disease itself. Immunizations have saved more than a billon lives and protected civilians in the United States from life threatening diseases. During the 20th century the life expectancy in the United States has increased largely due to immunizations and also reducing the mortality rate of infectious diseases (Healthy People 2020, 2014, p.1). In today’s society there has been skepticism among parents with vaccinating their children. Although there is no scientific discovery, parents have an idea that injecting a potential harmful substance may be linked to autism, SIDS, or other threatening side effects. Vaccinations are not mandatory in the United States, people have the right to choose, but outbreaks of preventable diseases will occur when numerous parents decide not to vaccinate their children. According to the CDC, vaccine-preventable diseases are still a threat to our society (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC], 2016, p.1). Outbreaks of measles, mumps, and whopping cough have been reported since 2001 and continue to infect children in the U.S.

When reflecting on the history of the human species, it is said that the narrative of mankind and infectious diseases are intertwined. For centuries, humans have been exposed to a seemingly infinite amount of contagions. Many viruses, bacteria, and fungi have plagued human beings for ages and have eradicated populations thousands at a time. Through medical innovations and the advancement of scientific knowledge, humans have been able to combat disease and disease-carrying vectors. Through proper hygiene, antibiotics and vaccinations humans have been able to control and eliminate many viruses and bacteria. It would seem that with the growing amount of medical knowledge, that infections would be less common, but this is not the case.