JESUSLAND FOR SMALLPOX VACCINATIONS: Homeland security-studying doc hopes everyone gets their shots next time, not just red-staters
In the war on bioterror, political extremism is no vice. Because that's true, much unusual material comes across Dick Destiny blog's desk as Senior Fellow for GlobalSecurity.
Today's story is about smallpox immunization and greater levels of awareness of it as a catastrophic bioterror threat in Jesusland.
F. Matthew Mihelic, MD, Assistant Professor at the Center for Homeland Security Studies, Graduate School of Medicine at the University of Tennessee, writes in a new paper, Smallpox Biodefense: A Multifactoral Analysis: "There is an interesting correlation between acceptance of smallpox immunization by medical workers in 2003 and the state-by-state outcome of the 2004 Presidential election."
And his correlation, although not bluntly stated is: In Jesusland, or "red" states, healthcare workers recognized the gravity of the smallpox threat more greatly than in blue states.
The smallpox vaccination program, instituted by government out of fear (or concern) over bioterror was generally regarded as a failure in 2003. It flopped -- trepidation over side-effects and skepticism being two reasons -- with the only people assuredly taking it being those made to, as in military men and women.
"While the reason that medical workers declined vaccination . . . are many, political factors may have contributed," Mihelic writes. To illustrate this, his paper includes color-shaded maps showing levels of vaccination along with a red state/blue-state map of the 2004 election.
The figure here, A BioDefense Failure, from the House Select Committee on Homeland Security should be read thusly: The darker states had the lowest rates of smallpox volunteerism, the lighter-shaded states, the highest. [The astute reader will notice the shading scale chosen by this congressional committee is somewhat confusing, needlessly complicating interpretation of the map.] And Mihelic's read on this is interesting -- that medical workers in Jesusland were more diligent in attending to their government's bioterror concern.
There were some exceptions to the trend. Nevada and Arizona were apparently very naughty "red" states, with levels of non-compliance higher than those in the United States of Canada's California and New York. And red Colorado and Georgia were every bit as naughty as California, Maine and Washington. But the US of Canada counties New Hampshire, Vermont and Connecticut tried to do their smallpox duty, at least as much as Texas of Jesusland.
Immunization is important, argues Mihelic, because fewer casualties in a smallpox attack will result with "preemptive vaccination" prior to an attack, rather than immunization during an outbreak. The current US strategy, called "ring vaccination," is "bound to fail," he writes.
To preclude smallpox immunization from degenerating again into a Jesusland vs. United States of Canada polarization, "If the decision were made to vaccinate the population in advance of a smallpox outbreak, it would be best announced jointly, with all state governors, in conjunction with bipartisan legislative leadership support, and it should be timed to avoid election-cycle concerns," recommends Mihelic. A good time for this would be before the 2007 election, since the current administration can't run for re-election, he summarizes.
Read the original article in its entirety, published in the recent Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons, here.
In the war on bioterror, political extremism is no vice. Because that's true, much unusual material comes across Dick Destiny blog's desk as Senior Fellow for GlobalSecurity.
Today's story is about smallpox immunization and greater levels of awareness of it as a catastrophic bioterror threat in Jesusland.
F. Matthew Mihelic, MD, Assistant Professor at the Center for Homeland Security Studies, Graduate School of Medicine at the University of Tennessee, writes in a new paper, Smallpox Biodefense: A Multifactoral Analysis: "There is an interesting correlation between acceptance of smallpox immunization by medical workers in 2003 and the state-by-state outcome of the 2004 Presidential election."
And his correlation, although not bluntly stated is: In Jesusland, or "red" states, healthcare workers recognized the gravity of the smallpox threat more greatly than in blue states.
The smallpox vaccination program, instituted by government out of fear (or concern) over bioterror was generally regarded as a failure in 2003. It flopped -- trepidation over side-effects and skepticism being two reasons -- with the only people assuredly taking it being those made to, as in military men and women.
"While the reason that medical workers declined vaccination . . . are many, political factors may have contributed," Mihelic writes. To illustrate this, his paper includes color-shaded maps showing levels of vaccination along with a red state/blue-state map of the 2004 election.
The figure here, A BioDefense Failure, from the House Select Committee on Homeland Security should be read thusly: The darker states had the lowest rates of smallpox volunteerism, the lighter-shaded states, the highest. [The astute reader will notice the shading scale chosen by this congressional committee is somewhat confusing, needlessly complicating interpretation of the map.] And Mihelic's read on this is interesting -- that medical workers in Jesusland were more diligent in attending to their government's bioterror concern.
There were some exceptions to the trend. Nevada and Arizona were apparently very naughty "red" states, with levels of non-compliance higher than those in the United States of Canada's California and New York. And red Colorado and Georgia were every bit as naughty as California, Maine and Washington. But the US of Canada counties New Hampshire, Vermont and Connecticut tried to do their smallpox duty, at least as much as Texas of Jesusland.
Immunization is important, argues Mihelic, because fewer casualties in a smallpox attack will result with "preemptive vaccination" prior to an attack, rather than immunization during an outbreak. The current US strategy, called "ring vaccination," is "bound to fail," he writes.
To preclude smallpox immunization from degenerating again into a Jesusland vs. United States of Canada polarization, "If the decision were made to vaccinate the population in advance of a smallpox outbreak, it would be best announced jointly, with all state governors, in conjunction with bipartisan legislative leadership support, and it should be timed to avoid election-cycle concerns," recommends Mihelic. A good time for this would be before the 2007 election, since the current administration can't run for re-election, he summarizes.
Read the original article in its entirety, published in the recent Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons, here.
posted by George Smith at 12:15 PM
2 Comments:
This post has been removed by a blog administrator.
Hey Dick,
As the author of that congressioanl report, I'd like to say that in the originalm the graphic was in color, and went from green to red in a very easy way to read it. It was the medical journal article authors that converted it to greyscale.
Cheers,
Mike
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