Tag: smallpox

Which Vaccines Do You Get When You Join the Military?

The oral adenovirus vaccine is approved to prevent adenovirus infections in military populations.

Believe it or not, many vaccines are available that we don’t routinely get.

Some we only get if we travel, like vaccines for yellow fever and typhoid. Others we only get in high risk situations, like if you get exposed to a bat with rabies.

And one, the adenovirus vaccine, you can only get if you join the military.

Which Vaccines Do You Get When You Join the Military?

But don’t folks get a lot of vaccines when they join the military?

It depends…

Whether you join the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, or Coast Guard, health personnel will evaluate your immunity status by checking your titers to routine vaccine-preventable diseases. So no, if you were wondering, it doesn’t seem like they just check the vaccine records that you might bring from your pediatrician.

And then once they assess your immunization or immunity status, you will get vaccinated:

  • upon accession – adenovirus, influenza, meningococcal, MMR, Tdap, and chicken pox
  • during the first or second half of collective training – hep A, hep B, and polio (if needed) and other vaccines based on risk

So, in addition to getting caught up on all routine vaccines that they might be missing, there are other “military vaccines” that they might need, including:

  • Adenovirus vaccine – given to enlisted soldiers during basic training
  • Anthrax vaccine – only military personnel with extra risk, although some civilians can get this vaccine too
  • Smallpox vaccine – only military personnel who are high risk and smallpox epidemic response team members, although some civilians can get this vaccine too
Which vaccines you get in the military might be determined by where you are getting deployed to.
Which vaccines you get in the military will likely be determined by where you get deployed.

Like the recommendations for civilians, other vaccines are mainly given to military personal if they have extra risk based on where they are being deployed.

  • Cholera – only military personnel with extra risk based on deployment or travel to endemic areas
  • Japanese encephalitis – only military personnel with extra risk based on deployment or travel to endemic area in Eastern Asia and certain western Pacific Islands
  • Rabies vaccine – pre-exposure vaccination is only for military personnel with animal control duties or with extra risk based on deployment, including special operations personnel
  • Typhoid vaccine – only military personnel with extra risk based on deployment or travel to typhoid-endemic areas and other areas with poor sanitation.
  • Yellow fever vaccine – only military personnel with extra risk based on deployment or travel to yellow-fever-endemic areas in sub-Saharan Africa and tropical South America.

These are the same vaccines that we would get if we traveled to high risk areas.

 

Military Vaccines in Development

It shouldn’t be a surprise that the military does research on infectious diseases and vaccines.

Members of the military are often put at great risk for known and emerging diseases, like Ebola, Zika, and malaria.

That’s why some vaccines might have been given as an investigational new drug in special situations, typically when “individuals who have a high occupational risk – laboratory workers, facilities inspectors, vaccine manufacturers and certain military response teams.”

These vaccines, which were initially developed at US Army labs, are no longer being produced, but have included:

  • Argentine hemorrhagic fever (Junin virus) vaccine
  • Chikungunya fever vaccine
  • Eastern equine encephalitis vaccine
  • Q fever vaccine
  • Rift Valley fever vaccine
  • Tularemia vaccine
  • Venezuelan equine encephalitis vaccine
  • Western equine encephalitis vaccine

Today, the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research (WRAIR) “is a leader in global efforts against the world’s most pervasive and high impact infectious diseases.”

WRAIR is working on vaccines for HIV, Ebola, MERS, and Zika.

What to Know About Military Vaccines

You will need some extra vaccines when you enlist in the military, but how many will depend on if you are up-to-date when you join and your area of responsibility. So there is no one-size-fits-all military immunization schedule.

More on Military Vaccines

 

Vaccinated vs Unvaccinated – Smallpox Edition

Anti-vaccine folks really like comparing vaccinated and unvaccinated kids.

Why?

They think that unvaccinated kids are healthier, even though we know that they aren’t, they simply get more vaccine-preventable diseases.

Vaccinated vs Unvaccinated – Smallpox Edition

And we have known it for a long time. In Leicester, for example, it was known that folks weren’t vaccinated were much more likely to die of smallpox than those who were. In fact, the fatality rate in Leicester in the late 19th century and early 20th century was 1 to 2% for those who were vaccinated. What was it for folks who were unvaccinated? It was 8 to 12%!

And like many other diseases, if they did get sick, those who were vaccinated against smallpox often got a very mild case, especially as compared to those who were unvaccinated. We can see that even now thanks to photographs taken by Dr. Allan Warner, the Resident Medical Officer to the Isolation Hospital in Leicester.

Vaccinated vs unvaccinated with smallpox.

Dr. Warner’s photos have been published time and again, but they can originally be found in the New Sydenham Society’s Atlas of 1904.

Vaccinated vs unvaccinated sisters with smallpox.

There are many photos and many stories from the time that were testament to the fact that vaccines work.

“A boy, aged 14 years, unvaccinated, sickened with small pox on April 14th. He was removed to hospital on April 18th, where he had a severe confluent attack. The father consented to his wife and three children being vaccinated, stating that personally he would not be vaccinated, but would be a “test,” to see if there was anything in it.

Ten days later his daughter, aged three years, developed a small-pox eruption she had less than one hundred spots and never appeared ill. No other person in the house suffered from small-pox except the father, vaccinated in infancy, his eruption appearing fourteen days after the son had been removed to hospital. A photograph of the father and daughter, taken on the twelfth day of the father’s eruption, may be seen in Plate VI. [see below] and requires no comment.”

This father was the only one in the family who skipped getting vaccinated, and he got smallpox.
This father was the only one in the family who skipped getting vaccinated, and he got smallpox.

And there are also stories of folks skipping vaccines already. Remember, the anti-vaccine movement is even older than the first vaccines. It started with variolation. By the time these photos were taken, anti-vaccine folks had already marched on Leicester. A march that didn’t turn folks away from getting vaccinated.

The Vaccination of Contacts part of the Leicester Method is usually left out by anti-vaccination folks.
Folks were still getting vaccinated using the Leicester Method in Leicester.

For those who think getting smallpox was all about poor nutrition and hygiene, how do you explain these photos? Why such different outcomes for people in the same family, if it wasn’t their vaccine?

The smallpox vaccine clearly worked.
It was the vaccine, as this report on an outbreak of smallpox in 1903 clearly showed.

And that’s why the anti-vaccine movement “slowly faded from view” in the early 20th century.

Too bad we let them come back…

What to Know About Vaccinated vs Unvaccinated with Smallpox

It should be clear that in the era of smallpox, like with other vaccine-preventable diseases, you clearly wanted to be vaccinated.

More on Vaccinated vs Unvaccinated with Smallpox

Do Vaccine Mandates Force Parents to Vaccinate Their Kids?

Listening to some parents talk about new vaccine laws, you would think that pediatricians are going to start kidnapping babies or simply hold them down to force them to get vaccinated and follow the latest immunization schedule.

Is there any truth to that?

Of course not.

The History of Vaccine Mandates

There have been vaccine mandates in the United States since 1827, when Boston became the first city to require all children attending public schools to be vaccinated against smallpox.

Surprisingly though, it took a long time to get vaccine mandates protecting more children. It wasn’t until the 1980-81 school year that there were laws in all 50 states mandating that children required vaccinations before starting school.

This followed continued measles outbreaks in the mid-1970s and studies showing that states with vaccine mandates had much lower rates of measles than states that didn’t. And it likely explains why there were 10 measles deaths in the United States as late as 1980, even though the first measles vaccine was introduced in 1963.

It took even longer for the vaccine mandates to cover kids in all grades and not just those entering school, to cover kids in daycare, and to cover kids in college. And tragically, it didn’t take long for politicians to chip away at those vaccine mandates. Over just a few years, from 1998 to 2000, 15 states added personal belief vaccine exemptions.

Still, even before the addition of personal belief vaccine exemptions and without the abuse of religious exemptions and medical exemptions, vaccine mandates have never equaled forced vaccination.

Even the Vaccination Act of 1853 in the UK, which required everyone to get a small pox vaccine, didn’t actually force them to get vaccinated. It originally levied fines on people until they got the vaccine, but they soon allowed a conscientious exemption to vaccination, which many people took advantage of. Over the years, so many people were claiming conscientious vaccine exemptions in the UK, that in 1946, they repealed their vaccine requirements altogether.

What Is a Vaccine Mandate?

Since a mandate is typically defined as an official order to do something, a vaccine mandate would be an order to get a vaccine. But it is hardly an order to hold down and force a vaccine on someone.

Likewise, state laws that mandate vaccines aren’t forcing kids to get vaccinated. They are typically mandates to get vaccinated before attending daycare, public and private schools, and/or college.

Is your child going to camp this year? They might mandate certain vaccines if kids want to attend.

Do Vaccine Mandates Force Parents to Vaccinate Their Kids?

Do vaccine mandates take away a person’s choice about getting vaccinated?

Anti-vaccine folks go to great lengths to scare you into thinking that someone is going to force you to vaccinate your kids. They aren't...
Anti-vaccine folks go to great lengths to scare you into thinking that someone is going to force you to vaccinate your kids. They aren’t…

Of course not.

Again. We are not talking about forced vaccination.

For example, if you work in a hospital that requires a yearly flu vaccine, you can decide to work somewhere else. Sure, you no longer simply have the choice between getting vaccinated or leaving yourself unprotected and continuing to work at the same job, but you can still decide to skip the vaccine and look for another job.

These are mandates with a choice.

The same is true with vaccine mandates for kids to attend school or daycare. If you choose to skip one or more vaccines for a non-medical reason, then even if you are in a state that doesn’t allow religious or philosophical vaccine exemptions, you won’t be forced to get vaccinated. While it may not be an option you are happy with, homeschooling is an option for those who don’t want to vaccinate their kids.

That is your vaccine choice.

Public education is a benefit of those who comply with mandates or compulsory vaccination laws.

These state immunization laws and vaccine mandates have nothing to do with forced vaccination. They also don’t take away your informed consent, are not against the Nuremberg Code, and are not unconstitutional.

Have kids ever been forced to get vaccinations?

Not routinely, but there have been cases of health officials getting court orders to get kids vaccinated and protected, usually during outbreaks of a vaccine-preventable disease.

In 1991, for example, a judge ruled that parents of unvaccinated children who were members of the Faith Tabernacle Congregation in Pennsylvania had to get a measles vaccine. As a measles outbreak spread through Faith Tabernacle, an associated church, and the rest of the city, there were at least 486 cases of measles in the church, mostly among children, and 6 deaths.

“Parents are free to become martyrs themselves. But it does not follow that they are free, in identical circumstances, to make martyrs of their children before they have reached the age of full and legal discretion when they can make that choice for themselves.”

Prince v. Massachusetts

In addition to being unvaccinated, these children didn’t get any medical care, as their families instead relied on prayer. Finally, after the order was appealed all the way to the state Supreme Court, only nine children got vaccinated.

When parents disagree about vaccines, a judge might also step in decide that a child be vaccinated over one parent’s objections. A child might also get vaccinated against their parents wishes if they have lost custody for reasons that have nothing to do with the child’s medical issues and so a legal guardian, which might be the state, is making those decisions now.

Still, these are not the usual circumstances we are talking about with state vaccine laws. They are simply laws to get kids vaccinated and protected before they are allowed to attend daycare or school.

What to Know About Vaccine Mandates and Forced Vaccinations

Vaccine mandates do not force parents to vaccinate their kids.

More on Vaccine Mandates and Forced Vaccinations

 

The Catholic Church and Vaccines

We hear a lot about the Catholic Church and vaccines.

The Catholic Church teaches that it is lawful to get vaccinated to protect
The Catholic Church teaches that it is lawful to get vaccinated to protect “our children, public health, and the common good.” The National Catholic Bioethics Center

Maybe it is because Pope Francis led a polio vaccine campaign when he visited Mexico.

Pope Francis helped launch a polio vaccine campaign when he visited Mexico in 2016.
Pope Francis helped launch a polio vaccine campaign when he visited Mexico in 2016.

Or because Pope Francis thanked members of the Rotary International during an Audience at the Vatican, where the Pope “emphasized the importance of vaccinations against polio and urged Rotary to continue.”

History of the Catholic Church and Vaccines

Pope Francis isn’t the first Pope to promote vaccination.

Way back in the early 1800s, Pope Pius VII said the smallpox vaccine was “a precious discovery which ought to be a new motive for human gratitude to Omnipotence.”

But wasn’t there an anti-vaccine pope too?

Some claimed that Pope Leo XII had said that “Whoever allows himself to be vaccinated ceases to be a child of God. Smallpox is a judgment of God, the vaccination is a challenge toward heaven.”

He didn’t say it though – the anti-vax edict from the Pope was imaginary!

There was no anti-vaccine pope.

Endorsement of vaccination by the Catholic Church had started long before the smallpox vaccine. As early as the 1720s, Jesuits were inoculating Indians in the Amazon against smallpox.

Other noteworthy events in the history of the Catholic Church related to vaccines include:

  • 1757 – Pope Benedict XIV was inoculated against smallpox
  • 1780s – introduction of public vaccinations by the archbishop of Bamberg, Germany
  • 1821 – Council of Vaccination
  • 1800s – priests routinely led processions of people to get vaccinated against smallpox
  • 1862 – Catholic missionaries vaccinated the Quwutsun in the Pacific Northwest

Sean Phillips, in examining the records of the Osler Library, has also found “a story of close cooperation between clergy and the state from the earliest stages of the vaccine in France…” That was important, because when smallpox epidemics were raging, the clergy functioned “as a conduit between the medical community and the majority of cities, towns, and communes in France throughout the nineteenth century.”

Vaccines and Abortion

Of course, one of the main reasons that vaccines and the Catholic Church comes up at all is because of abortion.

The Pontifical Academy for Life reaffirmed the "lawfulness" of using vaccines to protect children and those around them.
The Pontifical Academy for Life reaffirmed the “lawfulness” of using vaccines to protect children and those around them.

What does abortion have to do with vaccines?

While much of what you hear about abortion and vaccines isn’t true, some of it is:

  • Vaccines do not contain aborted fetal tissue.
  • Some vaccines are made in cell lines that originated from fetuses that were aborted over 40 years ago.
  • These vaccines are made in descendent cells from either the WI-38 and MRC-5 cell lines, which have been duplicated over and over again and are grown independently. So, “it is important to note that descendent cells are not the cells of the aborted child.”
  • The descendent cells don’t remain in the final vaccine after it has been purified.

It should be clear now why they say that these vaccines are said to have a “distant association with abortion.”

“For its part, Catholic social teaching entails a duty to vaccinate in order to protect the vulnerable.”

Paul J. Carson on Catholic Social Teaching and the Duty to Vaccinate

And why it is said that Catholics are “morally free to use the vaccine regardless of its historical association with abortion” and that “it should be obvious that vaccine use in these cases does not contribute directly to the practice of abortion since the reasons for having an abortion are not related to vaccine preparation.”

“Since there is no Catholic teaching that the use of these vaccines is sinful, schools cannot allow Catholic parents to claim a religious exemption from the requirement of immunization.”

National Catholic Bioethics Center on Vaccines and Exemptions Granted by Schools

Catholics can seek an alternative vaccine when available and “register a complaint with the manufacturer of the products as an acceptable form of conscientious objection,” but the The National Catholic Bioethics Center states that “there is no moral obligation to register such a complaint in order to use these vaccines.”

Not only are we morally free to get vaccinated and vaccinate our kids, but the National Catholic Bioethics Center says that parents actually “have a moral obligation to protect the life and health of their children and those around them.”

What to Know About the Catholic Church and Vaccines

From measles to HPV, the Catholic Church recommends that your family be vaccinated and protected.

More About the Catholic Church and Vaccines

Save

Save

The Hospital Rock Engravings of Farmington, Connecticut

Vaccines are a lot safer than they used to be in the old days.

No, I’m not talking about the “crude brew” that was the original DTP vaccine.

This older vaccine used more antigens than the DTaP vaccine that replaced it, so could cause more side effects. Even before that though, there was less oversight of vaccine manufacturers in the early 20th century. This could lead to vaccines that were contaminated or which simply didn’t work.

That certainly was a problem with the early smallpox vaccine, which is typically considered to be the most dangerous vaccine ever routinely used.

Variolation and Smallpox

But even before the smallpox vaccine was developed by Edward Jenner in 1796, we had variolation.

While the smallpox vaccine involved the cowpox virus, variolation actually infected someone with smallpox. The idea was to give the person a milder form by exposing them to a weaker, or attenuated, form of the virus.

They got this weakened virus from the smallpox scabs of someone who had already recovered and:

  • blowing dried smallpox scabs into their nose
  • applying pus from smallpox scabs to a small puncture wound on their skin

Variolation worked, giving the person immunity to smallpox – if they survived.

Unfortunately, about 1 to 3% of people who underwent variolation died.

And people who had recently undergone variolation could be contagious, leading to smallpox epidemics.

So why did folks undergo variolation if they had a chance of dying from the procedure?

It’s simple.

A natural smallpox infection was so much more deadly. Up to 30% of people who got smallpox died, and many people eventually got caught up in the regular smallpox epidemics that plagued people in the pre-vaccine era.

The Hospital Rock Engravings of Farmington, Connecticut

We don’t have to worry about smallpox anymore.

Well, not about natural smallpox infections, since smallpox was eradicated back in 1980.

And there are many other diseases that we get vaccinated against, with it being extremely easy to get that protection, especially compared to what folks did in the old days.

Do you know how far folks went to make variolation safer?

“Every year, thousands undergo this operation, and the French Ambassador says pleasantly, that they take the small-pox here by way of diversion, as they take the waters in other countries. There is no example of any one that has died in it, and you may believe I am well satisfied of the safety of this experiment, since I intend to try it on my dear little son. I am patriot enough to take the pains to bring this useful invention into fashion in England…”
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu On Small Pox in Turkey (1717)

They actually went to smallpox hospitals to get vaccinated, remaining in quarantine for up to three weeks so that they wouldn’t get others sick.

In Farmington, Connecticut, two doctors established the Todd-Wadsworth Smallpox Hospital and had a lot of success with variolation.

Patients were no longer starved before inoculation, and many had begun to doubt the efficacy and safety of vomiting, sweats, purges, mercurials (toxic mercury salts such as calomel), and bleeding which had previously weakened both inoculees and those who “took the pox in the natural way.”

Charles Leach, MD on Hospital Rock

There, up to 20 patients at a time stayed in quarantine to get variolated, as a smallpox epidemic hit nearby Boston.

Patients engraved their name on Hospital Rock in the late 1700s near Farmington.
Patients engraved their name on Hospital Rock in the late 1700s near Farmington. Photo by Keith Wilkens

Between 1792 and 1794, many who got variolated wrote their names on what is now known as Hospital Rock.

“Many have supposed that the names on this rock were those who had did of the small-pox, but this is a great mistake. Every name on the rock is that of a person who was living when the name was placed there. Norris Stanley lived to own ships which were captured in the war of 1812 by Algerian pirates and still later to receive from the United States an indeminity therefor amounting to a large sum.”

James Shepard on The Small Pox Hospital Rock

The nearby town of Durham seemed to go a different way.

Instead of an inoculation hospital, they had a pest house to quarantine folks with natural smallpox infections.

Adding to the history of smallpox in Connecticut – a smallpox burying ground in Guilford.

Why wasn’t variolation popular everywhere? Folks didn’t have to wait for the first vaccine for the anti-vaccine movement to get started.

What to Know About Smallpox and the Hospital Rock Engravings

Hundreds of people got safely inoculated against smallpox and left their names on Hospital Rock near Farmington, Connecticut just before Edward Jenner discovered the first smallpox vaccine.

More on the Hospital Rock Engravings

Grave Reminders of Life Before Vaccines

Need a reminder of just how serious vaccine preventable diseases can be?

Don’t remember the pre-vaccine era?

That could be why some folks are so quick to think that skipping or delaying vaccines is a safe option for their kids.

Vaccines are necessary.

Without them, we will see even more outbreaks of measles, mumps, and pertussis and kids will continue to die of rabies, tetanus, and other now vaccine-preventable diseases.

The South Park Cemetary was begun in 1891 during a diphtheria epidemic.
A diphtheria cemetery in Wyoming.

Isolation hospitals and pest houses were commonly used to quarantine folks with smallpox.
Isolation hospitals and pest houses were commonly used to quarantine folks with smallpox and other now vaccine-preventable diseases.

Even mild smallpox, as depicted on this WHO Smallpox Recognition Card, included flu like symptoms, a few weeks of pustules, and then waiting for the lesions to scab over...
Even mild smallpox, as depicted on this WHO Smallpox Recognition Card, included flu like symptoms, a few weeks of pustules, and then waiting for the lesions to scab over…

People continued to die of smallpox well into the 20th century, even though an effective vaccine was developed in 1796.
People continued to die of smallpox well into the 20th century, even though an effective vaccine was developed in 1796.

In the pre-vaccine era, we had outbreaks of polio, and other, now vaccine-preventable diseases.
Outbreaks of polio would once isolate entire towns, as parents feared their kids would get sick too.

Fight Polio Poster
When was the last time you saw a child with polio?

Before wide use of the Hib and Prevnar vaccines, infants with fever would routinely get spinal taps and you would hope for clear fluid (cloudy fluid could be a sign of a bacterial infection).
Before wide use of the Hib and Prevnar vaccines, younger infants with fever would routinely need spinal taps and you would hope for clear fluid (cloudy fluid could be a sign of a Hib or Strep pneumo infection).

In the pre-vaccine era, Hib caused epiglottitis, meningitis, and pneumonia - all life-threatening diseases that are now prevented by the Hib vaccine.
In the pre-vaccine era, Hib caused epiglottitis, meningitis, and pneumonia – all life-threatening diseases that are now prevented by the Hib vaccine.

Before the 1990s, when the Hib vaccine available, hospitals had an epiglottitis team on call and always available.
Before the 1990s, when the Hib vaccine available, hospitals had an epiglottitis team on call and always available.

News of the Newark kids going to Paris to get Pasteur's rabies vaccine made the front page of the New York Times.
In 1885, several boys from Newark went all of the way to Paris to get Pasteur’s new rabies vaccine, as the disease had always been fatal up until that time.

Even if they survive, kids can lose fingers, toes, or even arms and legs to meningococcemia.
Even if they survive, kids can lose fingers, toes, or even arms and legs to meningococcemia.

Roald Dahl's daughter died of measles in 1962, the year before the development of the first measles vaccine.
Roald Dahl’s daughter died of measles in 1962, the year before the development of the first measles vaccine.

Nationwide, at least 123 people died in the United States during a large measles epidemic from 1989 to 1991, during a time that we had good sanitation, nutrition, and medical care.
Nationwide, at least 123 people died in the United States during large measles epidemics from 1989 to 1991, a time when we had good sanitation, nutrition, and medical care, but some folks weren’t vaccinated and we weren’t yet giving a second dose of MMR.

A papilloma caused by HPV on the vocal cords of a child with recurrent respiratory papillomatosis.
A papilloma caused by HPV on the vocal cords of a child with recurrent respiratory papillomatosis. (CC BY 4.0)

You don't have to go back to the pre-vaccine era to know that pertussis kills.
You don’t have to go back to the pre-vaccine era to know that pertussis kills. Ten infants died in 2010 in California from pertussis infections.

We should never forget what life was like before vaccines.

We should know that vaccine-preventable diseases were rarely mild, natural immunity comes at a cost, and that those who died from smallpox, diphtheria, measles, and polio aren’t around to talk about their experiences on Facebook (survivorship bias).

We should never forget that vaccine-preventable diseases were once big killers, and the only reason some folks have grown to fear the side effects of vaccines more than the diseases they prevent, is because we don’t see those diseases very much any more. If more people skip or delay getting vaccinated, we will though.

immunization-program-stages
As more people are vaccinated and diseases disappear, they forget how bad those diseases are, skip or delay getting their vaccines, and trigger outbreaks. Photo by WHO

Vaccines are safe and vaccines work.

Get vaccinated and protected.

Outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases belong in the past.

What to Know About Life Before Vaccines

Forgetting the pre-vaccine era and the benefits of vaccines makes folks susceptible to anti-vaccine talking points and scares them away from vaccinating and protecting their kids.

More on Remembering Life Before Vaccines

The Plano Smallpox Outbreak of 1895

In May 1895, a smallpox outbreak hit west Plano.
1895 Fort Worth Gazette

North Texas is no stranger to outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases.

After all, this was the site of a large measles outbreak in 2013 at the Kenneth Copeland Ministries Eagle Mountain International Church.

And it has also been the site of chicken pox parties, mumps outbreaks, and a few clusters of unvaccinated kids.

Mostly though, parents in North Texas do a good job of getting their kids vaccinated and protected.

The Plano Smallpox Outbreak of 1895

Of course, that’s not what’s keeping smallpox away.

Routine smallpox vaccination, which was typically given when children were about 12 months old, ended in 1972 in the United States. And smallpox was declared eradicated in 1980.

“Today, Preston Lakes is a quiet, manicured neighborhood in an affluent area of Plano. Almost 120 years ago, it was the site of one of Plano’s darkest hours.”

Plano Smallpox Outbreak of 1895

Driving around Plano now, it is hard to imagine that this city once battled smallpox.

While that is probably true of any modern city, the curious thing is that the area in and around Plano wasn’t settled until the early 1840’s, at which time an effective smallpox vaccine had been available for over 40 years.

Remember, Edward Jenner developed his smallpox vaccine in 1796. And before that we had variolation.

“On May 6, 1895, Plano City Council called an emergency meeting, establishing a strict quarantine “to protect our citizens from this loathsome disease.” Anyone within the area between what is now Spring Creek Parkway, Park Boulevard, Coit and Preston Roads was forbidden to leave. An armed guard patrolled the border.”

Plano Smallpox Outbreak of 1895

Farwick Collinsworth, whose family owned large portions of what is now West Plano, lost his 11-year-old granddaughter in the smallpox outbreak.

Next, his wife and two sons died.

Then two more grandchildren and a nephew.

All together, at least 15 people died in the smallpox outbreak of 1895 in Plano, Texas.

“In 1806 the first smallpox inoculations were administered in San Antonio de Béxar. After initial resistance to the experiment, the townspeople came to accept the procedure, and the threat of smallpox was lessened for a time.”

Texas State Historical Association Public Health

While the Plano outbreak is certainly sad, it is truly tragic that smallpox was already a vaccine-preventable disease at this time.

History of Smallpox in Texas

Still, as late as 1900, 894 people died of smallpox in the United States. Globally, at least 300 million people died of smallpox during the 20th century.

So why weren’t folks vaccinated against smallpox in the late 19th century in North Texas?

In 1901, the editor of The Texas Medical Journal discusses the "prejudice against vaccination" in Texas at the time of a widespread smallpox epidemic.
In 1901, the editor of The Texas Medical Journal discusses the “prejudice against vaccination” in Texas, at the time of a widespread smallpox epidemic.

While some people talking about issues with vaccine availability, remember that this is just after almost 100,000 people participated in the Leicester Demonstration March of 1885 to protest the smallpox vaccine.

While Leicester is quite a ways from Plano, a little bit closer to home we had the Laredo Smallpox Riot.

“When he realized that Laredoans were not fully embracing the quarantine program, especially the mandatory inoculation, he asked the governor to send in Texas Rangers. A contingent of rangers under Captain J.H. Rogers arrived on March 19, 1899, and began enforcing the health official’s orders more vigorously than some of the city’s residents thought proper. Milling protestors pelted rangers and health workers with harsh words and harder rocks, leading to a couple of minor injuries.
The next day, when the rangers got word that someone had telephoned a local hardware store to order 2,000 rounds of buckshot, the officers began a house-to-house search of the part of town where the order had come from. The situation soon deteriorated into a riot, with the rangers killing two citizens and wounding 10 others. It took cavalry from nearby Fort McIntosh to restore order.
The inoculation and fumigation program continued, and by May 1, Dr. Blunt lifted the quarantine in the border city.”

Frontier Medicine: Texas Doctors Overcome Disease and Despair

And we had folks pushing homeopathic vaccines, anti-vaccine talking points about the “evil results from vaccination,” all contributing to a “prejudice against vaccination.”

The Texas Medical Journal, in 1902, describes how other areas have controlled or eliminated smallpox with vaccines - but not Texas.
The Texas Medical Journal, in 1902, describes how other areas had controlled or eliminated smallpox with the vaccine – but not Texas.

It maybe shouldn’t be surprising that the last smallpox outbreak in the United States was in Texas – in 1949. Eight people got sick, and one person, Lillian Barber, died.

But Texas wasn’t at the center of the anti-vaccine fight against protecting kids against smallpox. In Utah (the McMillan bill), Minnesota, and California, laws were passed banning mandatory vaccination for attending school. While the governors of Utah and California vetoed their bills, in Utah, legislators overcame the veto.

What came next?

Outbreaks of smallpox.

In 1906, AMA President William J. Mayo, a Minnesota physician, charged that his state’s “inability to enforce vaccination” had unleashed a smallpox epidemic, infecting 28,000 of the state’s citizens – “all due to a small but vociferous band of antivaccination agitators.”

Pox: An American History

That was over a hundred years ago.

What comes next?

Will we let today’s “vociferous band of antivaccination agitators” guide  vaccine policy and put our kids at risk for vaccine-preventable diseases, as they push the same old anti-vaccine propaganda and fight against vaccine mandates, which are only necessary because they scare parents away from vaccinating and protecting their kids?

Let’s hope not.

What to Know About the Plano Smallpox Outbreak of 1895

Fifteen people died in Plano, Texas in 1895, even though a smallpox vaccine was available at the time that could have prevented this and most other smallpox outbreaks and epidemics. Tragically, the fight against its use mirrors much of what we see in today’s anti-vaccine movement.

More on the Plano Smallpox Outbreak of 1895