Found in the remains of Egyptian mummies and all over ancient Asia and China, the virus has probably killed more people than wars, famine, and terrorists have done.  Epidemics in Europe during the Middle Ages affected the course of western history.  Outbreaks of small pox started the decline of the Roman Empire and, once transported to the New World, succeeded in wiping-out most of the native population.  During the early 1700’s in Europe as many as 400,000 people died annually—about the population of Minneapolis.

The war on small pox started with the practice of inoculation against the disease.  Medical practitioners took the practice from Istanbul to Western Europe and then to the United States by the mid-1700’s.

The process involved pricking the skin of a person and infecting them with a small amount of pox.  It caused them to become slightly ill but also made them immune to the more serious disease when it struck.

During the American Revolution the Continental army attacked the British city of Quebec.  They came close to succeeding until an outbreak of small pox stopped them. The British army had been inoculated, avoided the plague, and repulsed the American’s attack for good.

Edward Jenner didn’t actually discover the vaccine used against small pox, but he was the first scientist to attempt to control an infectious disease—and he was successful.

By the 1950’s small pox had been effectively eradicated from Europe and North America, thanks to public sanitation efforts and the widespread use of the vaccine.  In 1980, after a world-wide campaign, the World Health Organization announced the official end of the disease in the world and recommended that countries cease vaccination—which meant that today no one has immunity to the disease.  (Even for those of us who received vaccine years ago, the protection has decayed.)

Everyone in the world is vulnerable.

With that scary thought in mind, I’ve written a suspense novel about terrorists who steal samples of small pox from a repository in Russia and intend to infect American school children with it—creating hundreds of “weapons of mass destruction.”  It’s called Reprisal.  It takes place in Minneapolis where several Somali boys have disappeared in the past few years.  In my book, they’ve been kidnapped to be used by the terrorists to carry small pox back into the schools and start a pandemic.

What really scares me—and readers also—is that the “enemy” here is something you can’t see, touch, feel, or smell…how do you defend against it?  Also, once the population learns about the spread of small pox, I think the panic will be worse than the disease itself.

Luckily, I can tell you the heroine in my book succeeds in stopping the terrorists and preventing an outbreak—at the last-minute, of course.

Check-out the book at my web site and tell me what you think.

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What’s going on?

Measles has almost been eradicated from the United States.  So why is measles suddenly threatening to breakout?

Health officials point to a simple problem: in recent years, fewer parents chose to vaccinate their children.  It creates a cycle that applies to many infectious diseases like small pox.

Over the years, scientists and people worked together to develop vaccines to kill the disease and, as more people used the vaccine, the disease retreated.  The world-wide campaign against small pox. for instance, succeeded in eradicating the disease from the world–because it no longer had humans hosts to live and spread among.  Measles was close to being eradicated in the U.S.

Ironically, as the disease retreated and fewer people got sick, many others decided they, and their kids, didn’t need to be vaccinated anymore.  As a result, when infected people returned from Africa or Europe, many American citizens didn’t have an immunity to the disease.  Measles seems to be getting a foot-hold here again.

Serious?  Yes–people can die from measles.

Health officials warn that since measles rates are low in the U.S. it wouldn’t take many infections to cause an epidemic.  That’s because of something scientists call the “R-factor.”  It’s a way of measuring how fast the disease will replicate itself in other hosts and, therefore, how fast it will spread–especially if few people were protected by vaccination.

In Minneapolis and Boston, the main fight is to try to contain the outbreak to prevent the spread from growing into a full epidemic.

But…what if terrorists tried to use a disease to kill American citizens?

Defense experts say the biggest hurdle for terrorists would be the “release mechanism.”  How would they release it for infection of the maximum number of people?

Disease like small pox and measles would be easier to release because the viruses are airborne and passed like the common cold.  At least with measles, we have vaccines in great quantities.  That’s not the same for small pox.

My book, Reprisal, is a story about terrorists who use small pox as a weapon of mass destruction by trying to infect many school children to start an epidemic.  If you’re intrigued, or scared, by the idea, check it out at my web site or Amazon books.

Is your family vaccinated against measles?  Are you doing anything to protect yourselves?  Should the government step in and do anything for the people who refuse to get vaccinated?  As doctors warn:  even if you don’t want to do anything for yourself, think of all the other people you will infect if you’re not vaccinated.

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