Smallpox?

[jamesd at echeque.com]

    --
James Donald writes:
> > The original vaccine was based on cowpox, the nearest 
> > relative of small pox.  However it was insufficiently 
> > effective and reliable, and so was furtively replaced by
> > a weakened strain of smallpox, which was grown on cows. 
> > The sellers of the vaccine continued to represent it as
> > cowpox, but it was in fact a mild variant of the real
> > thing, smallpox.
> >
> > One reason for ending routine smallpox vaccinations was
> > fear that the vaccine might re-evolve virulence.

On 27 Sep 2001, at 21:50, Nomen Nescio wrote:
> You are full of shit.  The smallpox vaccine is not made
> from cowpox or from smallpox (variola) virus.  It is made
> from the vaccinia virus. Did you ever wonder where the word
> "vaccine" comes from?

>From the latin word for cow.

The vaccinia virus is most plausibly a weakened strain of
smallpox.

The word "vaccine" does not come from "vaccinia".  On the
contrary, the word "vaccinia" comes from "vaccine".

The Vaccinia virus is intermediate between the cowpox and
smallpox virus.

It may be the result of hybridization between cowpox and
smallpox, but is most plausibly the result of the small pox
virus devolving back towards the cowpox virus from which it
arose, as a result of being cultured in cows.  In this sense,
the vaccinia virus is most plausibly a weakened strain of
smallpox.

The word "vaccine" comes from cow, because the original
vaccine was cowpox, and the current vaccine is raised in
cows. 

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         James A. Donald
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