Our skins record the histories of life’s close scrapes. One
of the most common marks that humans carry is, we hope, bound for extinction:
the nickel-sized cicatrix left by a successful smallpox vaccination.
The deadliest disease in history, smallpox was eradicated
worldwide more than thirty years ago. With each passing year, fewer of the
world’s inhabitants bear the mark of smallpox vaccination on their arms.
Fewer still can remember what those scars once meant. Our
fading vaccination scars are not simply a tattooed testament to one of the
greatest scientific and medical triumphs of all time.
These scars are also a reminder of the shocking level of
coercion and harsh treatment once used in vaccination campaigns—and the
widespread popular resistance sparked by those measures.
As smallpox spread across much of the country, infecting and
killing thousands, a vaccination scar on the upper arm assumed a new sociopolitical
significance.
By 1900 the mark of vaccination, a medical practice already
more than a century old, should have occasioned little notice. But as the
United States stepped onto the global stage as an imperial power, the most
productive industrial economy in the world, and a principal destination for the
world’s immigrants, the scar became a badge of “civilization” and citizenship.
Immigrants could not enter the country without one. On US
soil, the scar served as a kind of domestic passport, required for admission to
many schoolhouses, workplaces, and public spaces. During a smallpox outbreak,
anyone who lacked a vaccination scar risked arrest, shotgun quarantine, and, if
the person refused to bare an arm for the vaccinator’s lancet, forcible immunization.
Seasoned health officers knew better than to trust paper vaccination
certificates; they demanded to see the scar. As one writer noted in American
Medicine, “This certain, well-defined sign cannot be forged.”
The scar is from the BCG vaccine. We will explain how we
know this and we will explain the BCG vaccine.
Smallpox is a horrible disease that caused a scarring rash
and killed many people.
The World Health Organization organized a vaccination
campaign that eliminated Smallpox from the world.The last natural case of
Smallpox occurred in Somalia in 1977, and the disease was officially declared
eradicated in 1980.
Routine smallpox vaccination stopped in 1972 in the U.S. All
countries had quit routine vaccination by 1986.
So, that leaves the BCG vaccine. BCG stands for Bacillus
Calmette-Guérin. The BCG vaccine is used to protect people from human
tuberculosis.
Interestingly, the BCG vaccine strain was developed from the
bacteria that cause tuberculosis in cows. People can catch cow TB by being in
close contact with cows or by drinking infected milk.
People will not develop cow TB from the BCG vaccine strain
because it is attenuated. Attenuated means it is a weak form without the
ability to cause disease. It is better adapted for living in culture dishes
than in a living body.
People develop an immune response to the BCG vaccine that
provides some protection against severe cases of human TB.
The BCG vaccine also makes people have a positive skin test
for TB. There is not any easy way to tell if a person who has a positive TB
skin test has been exposed to TB or if it is a reaction to the BCG vaccine.
Because of these issues, the BCG vaccine is routinely used
only in countries with high rates of TB.
Fortunately, the turn-of-the-century vaccine wars left their
marks not only upon the nation’s arms but also on its law books. In order to
strengthen public confidence in vaccines, Congress enacted the Biologics
Control Act in 1902, establishing a new federal system for licensing and
regulating vaccines. American courts issued rulings that placed public health
authority on firmer legal ground while also establishing key protections for
individuals’ civil liberties. Perhaps most important, popular opposition taught
government officials that when it comes to public health, education can be more
effective than brute force.
The
stories our scars can tell.
Source: Womansvibe