Please use the form below to submit correspondence to the authors or contact them at the following address: Kent A. Sepkowitz, Infectious Disease Service Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, New York, NY 10021, USA; fax: 212-717-3021. If only one of them had smallpox, even among a vaccinated population, the resulting outbreak could be devastating. The discrepancy may simply be a case of not adding columns of numbers in a systematic way; the fuzzy numbers do have a certain appeal to the modern, more cynical reader. The occasional case of smallpox had been seen in the area for decades since the last big outbreak in 1875, which had killed 2,000 New Yorkers. CDC twenty four seven. Be Safe. Half million were vaccinated in day. Reflections on New York City's 1947 Smallpox Vaccination Program and Its 1976 Swine Influenza Immunization Program. Very Loosely Based on a True Story: There really was an outbreak of smallpox in New York City in 1947, but the specifics have been radically altered for the movie. Imperato PJ. To determine whether smallpox vaccination increased the risk for cardiac death in 1947, the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DOHMH) analyzed data from NYC death certificates … And he began a tracing program to locate and vaccinate anyone exposed. The New York Times. The New York Times. Smallpox scare soon dissipated. “In a period of less than a month, 6,350,000 people were vaccinated in New York City,” he wrote. Smallpox began to make a resurgence in New York City in March 1947, when a man who had traveled from Mexico became sick and died from the disease. The New York Times. Yet, as described above, there may be much less to the miracle than met the eye. Formats: Summary | 1947 Nov; 37 (11):1376–1384. In early May, Dr. Weinstein announced that the danger had passed. During the first week, surprisingly little public attention was captured (Times articles typically were brief and confined to page 21). There was an unexpected error. Linking to a non-federal website does not constitute an endorsement by CDC or any of its employees of the sponsors or the information and products presented on the website. The vaccine rollout was remarkably swift and uncomplicated. Curb of smallpox a ‘miracle,’ says city health commissioner. The 1947 Smallpox Vaccination Campaign in New York City, Revisited. If one assumes that day-to-day numbers reported in the newspaper were roughly accurate, a simple calculation places the number of vaccinees closer to 2.5 million, far short of the announced total. Not today, but in 1947. That's what happened the last time smallpox was seen in New York City, in 1947. Second smallpox death spurs vaccination. “Never before had so many people been vaccinated in such a city and on such short notice.”. The city swiftly swung into full crisis mode. In Real Life, the index case was not a smuggler but a regular tourist, did not get infected in Cuba but in Mexico, and was not the subject of a contact-tracing manhunt but was rather admitted to hospital before the outbreak really began. On April 21, a grand total of 3.45 million recipients were reported; the next day, after noting that only 200,000 additional persons had received vaccine, the total became 4.4 million (9). Based on an actual case in 1946 - a smallpox scare in which millions of New Yorkers received free vaccinations - The Killer That Stalked New York (1950) is a fictionalized dramatization of that incident that stars Evelyn Keyes as Sheila Bennet, a modern day "Typhoid Mary" who contracts smallpox in Cuba while serving as a courier for Matt (Charles Korvin), her no-good musician boyfriend, in a stolen … The occasional case of smallpox had been seen in the area for decades since the last big outbreak in 1875, which had killed 2,000 New Yorkers. Dr. Weinstein assured residents, “Vaccination is painless. To determine whether vaccination increased cardiac death, we reviewed NYC death certificates for comparable periods in 1946 and 1948 (N = 81,529) and calculated adjusted relative death rates for the postvaccination period. But the municipal stockpile contained nowhere near enough vaccine for all of the city’s 7.8 million residents. Officials scurried to vaccinate people wherever smallpox surfaced. Two days later, epidemiologic investigation indicated that all patients with diagnosed cases were related and that, in all likelihood, the outbreak had been successfully halted through tracing the movements of the various patients and vaccinating anyone who had contact with them, so-called “ring” vaccination (4). In March 1947, a patient who had recently visited Mexico traveled by bus to New York City. Weinstein I. More than six million people were vaccinated in three weeks in New York City in 1947. The same NYCBOH strain was used in 1947 to vaccinate approximately six million New York City (NYC) residents (80% of the population) during a 4-week period (April 4-May 2) after a smallpox outbreak. He became ill, was hospitalized, and, after his death, found to have had smallpox. Most New Yorkers had been inoculated against smallpox. As the crisis slowly lessened, doctors were recruited at US$8 (US$64 in today’s market) for a 3-hour session (or US$24 for all day; US$192 in today’s market) to administer vaccine, but few volunteered. 26. Contrast New York’s response to smallpox in 1947 to what Milwaukee did with an outbreak there in 1894. However, in 1947, a second case and then a third appeared and concern gathered. The skin is not even broken by the needle. The New York Times. In April 1947, during a smallpox outbreak in New York City (NYC), more than 6 million people were vaccinated. If the arm becomes very sore, apply an icebag” (4). Message not sent. Police, fire, and health departments, and hospitals were mobilized to provide additional space for the effort. The 1947 Smallpox Vaccination Campaign in New York City, Revisited. There were 12 cases of smallpox. They’d been told the inoculation would protect them for life — but there was no guarantee. Get Vaccinated!”. His decision was hardly without risk. With little warning, and at the height of the program, the vaccine supply vanished, something that was never explained. In 1947, most New Yorkers had been inoculated against smallpox. The New York Times. The 1947 Smallpox Vaccination Campaign in New York City, Revisited. 2004;10(5):960-961. https://dx.doi.org/10.3201/eid1005.030973. Sepkowitz KA. By early April, Israel Weinstein, the city health commissioner at the time, began to urge New Yorkers who hadn’t been vaccinated as children to get vaccinated. A virulent outbreak of smallpox in New York City in 1947 surprised everyone and inspired a new method to improve the vaccine. At 2 p.m. that day, Dr. Weinstein held a news conference, urging all city dwellers to get vaccinated immediately, even if they had been inoculated as children. Sepkowitz, K. A. Am J Public Health Nations Health. Vaccine side effects, which dominate coverage of today’s vaccination program, were seldom discussed in 1947. An outbreak of smallpox in New York City. In less than a month, more than 6 million people have been vaccinated in New York. This advice is simple compared to the depth and breadth of information given today to a potential vaccinee.