Posted by Bill Ryan
(here)
Dear Friends,
After an interesting exchange with Avalon member
One on a different thread,
summarized here, I figured it might be interesting to share something about
the eradication of smallpox — one of man's very greatest scourges over the centuries.
I intend no ill-will towards
One —
whatsoever. I simply realized from his replies, which were all well-intended, that many people just don't know about this, or properly understand what happened. It's part of our recent history, which is documented and real. And some may find it truly very interesting.
I recommended
this excellent book by Richard Preston, a beautifully written page-turner. But I fully understand that few people read books, or now feel they have the time. So here's a concise, 7-minute video that tells the story.
It explains the concept of "ring vaccination", which was discovered quite by accident. (That's the creation of "firebreaks" to isolate and extinguish each outbreak whenever one occurred.)
The superhero of the project was D.A. Henderson (even his
wife called him "D.A."
), who was a quiet man but an excellent, inspiring, respected leader. He never got his Nobel Prize, though he was one of the most deserving of any. And Richard Preston, all of whose books I've read, appears several times in the video.
Caveats are in order here. This is
NOT an endorsement of vaccination for Covid-19, which, whatever one's views, increasingly appears to me to be unlikely to work. (One of several good reasons is that formed antibodies are often either absent completely, or aren't retained for long.) And were a vaccination available, I'd never take it.
Smallpox is rather different, anyway. As the video explains, smallpox was actually an ideal target for this kind of super-ambitious eradication project. For a start, it was impossible to miss once some unfortunate person contracted it.
And second, smallpox vaccination really
did work. If, unthinkably and we all hope impossibly, there were to be a smallpox outbreak today (that would have HAD to have escaped from a bioweapons lab!), the disease is so very terrible that I'd most definitely want to be vaccinated. I'd argue that the risk management equations virtually mandate that.
Moreover, strong cases have been made (which I fully understand and agree with) that modern vaccines can be and often are dangerous in many ways to far too many people. That's been more than covered, and excellently too, on other threads.
So, the point here is merely that it helps us all to know history. No statue to smallpox eradication should ever be destroyed.
And that's the history of countries, of disease, and of science. We should never be blind, dumb, uninformed Flat-Earthers about these things. Yes, viruses like this really do exist.
As
I posted on the other thread, facts are facts, and that's what helps us to all form good judgments. And often, those facts are nuanced, and require a little more understanding than is made available by simple dismissive one-liners.
Do watch
the video: it's concise and well-made. Better still, read
the book, but it's only here as an option to do so... of course. Part of Avalon's mission is to inform as accurately as possible, because good information and self-empowerment go very closely together.
Re: The Eradication of Smallpox
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If you don't know, and just suspect something or other, please take a moment to add real value to the discussion — meaning, something substantial that readers can think about, consider, and learn from. (At least Luke Holiday tried to do that by looking up something that was interesting, detailed and relevant!)
Or perhaps you are already acquainted.
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