dumb Dubya brings smallpox back

http://www.msnbc.com/news/846424.asp?vts=121220020750

am i the only person who's disturbed by the fact that
our idiot President is reintroducing to the world a
lethal disease that had been wiped out 20 years ago?

until this week, smallpox existed only as tiny samples in
two containment vaults, one at the Center for Disease Control
in Atlanta, and the other at a similar facility in Moscow.

now there are once again hundreds (soon to be thousands or
millions) of people walking around with it in their bodies.

thanks to Bush's new genocide policy, the best advice
would be to avoid all contact with other human beings.

-monz

on 12/12/02 11:41 AM, monz wrote:

> thanks to Bush's new genocide policy, the best advice
> would be to avoid all contact with other human beings.

This critique seems unfair. If he refused to make the vaccines available he
would be assailed as a genocidst refusing to protect the american people
against a dire threat. in fact, this is exactly the criticism I was hearing
only days before the policgy was announced. As it is, the vaccination will
be entirely voluntary for civilians. What's wrong with that? I got a
vaccination before I went overseas in 1978. It was weird and hurt and there
was a risk since its a relatively dangerous vaccine compared to others but
it's not like he's spreading live virus around in order to infect people.

- Jeff

----- Original Message -----
From: "X. J. Scott" <xjscott@...>
To: <metatuning@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Thursday, December 12, 2002 2:14 PM
Subject: Re: [metatuning] dumb Dubya brings smallpox back

> on 12/12/02 11:41 AM, monz wrote:
>
> > thanks to Bush's new genocide policy, the best advice
> > would be to avoid all contact with other human beings.
>
> This critique seems unfair. If he refused to make the
> vaccines available he would be assailed as a genocidst
> refusing to protect the american people against a dire
> threat. in fact, this is exactly the criticism I was
> hearing only days before the policgy was announced.
> As it is, the vaccination will be entirely voluntary for
> civilians. What's wrong with that? I got a vaccination
> before I went overseas in 1978. It was weird and hurt
> and there was a risk since its a relatively dangerous
> vaccine compared to others but it's not like he's spreading
> live virus around in order to infect people.

the news story i saw about it on TV stated that 1 or 2 people
out of a million who get the vaccination would die from it,
and 15 in a million would become ill with life-threating
symptoms.

my point was that there has been hardly any discussion
of the evidence (or lack thereof) of possession of smallpox
by Iraq or anyone else other than the Moscow and Atlanta
facilities ... and those two samples have been under heavy
lock, key, and guard since about 1980, by which time the
ordinary spread of the disease from person-to-person had
been eradicated worldwide. (here's a link to one article
that does discuss the possibility:
<http://makeashorterlink.com/?A2AC653C2>.)

so Bush's advocation of the voluntary smallpox vaccinations
is based entirely on the *supposition* that Iraq or some
terrorist agency has reserves of smallpox to begin with.

my opinion is that, under the preceding circumstances of
a world which no longer had to be concerned with smallpox,
his decision, to reintroduce the disease via the small
amounts injected in the vaccine, was a very stupid one.

think about the implications: let's say that, for example,
an American aid worker is stationed in southern Africa and
carries the smallpox vaccine in his body. he/she experiences
some symptoms and inadvertently trasmits the virus to a
person infected with AIDS. this person transmits it to
many others, etc.

i predict that millions of people will eventually die as
a result of this, and they didn't have to.

-monz

on 12/13/02 3:32 PM, monz wrote:

> he/she experiences
> some symptoms and inadvertently trasmits the virus to a
> person infected with AIDS. this person transmits it to
> many others, etc.
>
> i predict that millions of people will eventually die as
> a result of this, and they didn't have to.

ok i didn't know this was possible

thx

- j