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Contents 1 me 2 stuff I am doing on wikipedia 2.1 Question on reference desk 2.1.1 Smallpox erradication and the soviet union

[edit] me

Hi. I got little to say about myself. I love math, filosofy, and political science. I enjoy physics.

I believe that mankind ( i really think that the use of "humankind" is an exageration, looking for minor issues instead of important ones, not to mention it sounds like a try at newspeak ) has got other options, as far as it's political ans social organization is concearned. And i would hope to see choices that are more human.

I believe that there is only one truth, one way to differ right from wrong. So far, i'm convinced that this truth can only be made real in a socialist, democratic, and tolerant society ( i believe that one should aknoledge the impossibility of seeing things from all angles, and therefore accept that other people may have other views. What i don't get is : why not seat togheter, and try to undertand the different views, and seek, amongst them all, a common truth to guide the steps of both people ? We can't just accept that someone "figures" that 2+2=5 ! If we all used the same premisses, we have to get to the same conclusions !)

I like logic

I'm less organized than i should ( as this mess might suggest )

I love classical music, and instrumental in general. I love Vanessa Mae . For my neibors' despair, I'm leaning to play the violin

I try to never miss the sight of a bird, when they are near

I hope this is the goal of this page ... ( guess not ... in the edit page, it says that it has to be verifiable )

[edit] stuff I am doing on wikipedia

Right now, I am trying to research on the soviet union's significance to the errdication of smallpox

for that purpose, I keep in here the material I already have about it

[edit] Question on reference desk

[edit] Smallpox erradication and the soviet union

I'd like to know more about the soviet union's involvement in the struggle to erradicate smallpox. The article on smallpox seems to indicate they had a significant participation, but fails to state so, so I'd like to get the information to put it there. Cold Light (talk) 03:47, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

The book you need is Scourge: The Once and Future Threat of Smallpox by Jonathan Tucker, which details not only the Soviet contributions to smallpox eradication, but also their quest to mix smallpox with other bugs. A scary book indeed, and painstakingly researched. Among the key figures in the eradication program was Dr Viktor Zhdanov, then deputy minister of health for the USSR, who addressed the World Health Assembly in Minneapolis in 1958. He proposed a 'Soviet-style' five year plan to eradicate the disease. The USSR had eliminated smallpox by 1936 despite being little better than a third world country in terms of transportation and infrastructure, having poor quality vaccines, and having to service a huge, ethnically diverse, territory. Just the kind of expertise you'd need if you were trying to remove smallpox from Brazil or India. The USSR also pledged to donate 25 million doses of vaccine.

Unfortunately, the WHO was not interested in getting rid of smallpox at the time, but was rather caught up in the expensive American plan to wipe out malaria, which was eating up $13 million of the $30 million total budget for the WHO. Essentially throwing the USSR a bone, the WHA agreed in 1959 to finance the Soviet smallpox program with a budget of only $300,000 per annum.

The story is long, complicated, but quite worth reading. The Soviets always made the smallpox program a top priority, forcing the issue when nobody else was too interested. I can't type out all the details (read the book!), but the program was largely their baby; they provided the proposal, the blueprint for vaccination schemes, and continually pushed it onto the front of the agenda. It's a bitter irony that the same country that pushed for smallpox eradication the most also mucked about with such evil uses for it. I'm sure cynics would suggest the two programs were actually wed together, but I don't think that was necessarily the case. Matt Deres (talk) 16:54, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Ooh, and here's something else. The USSR was the chief provider of the vaccine, but it was determined that their vaccines were actually substandard. When Donald Henderson (an American and another key player) went to Moscow to discuss the problem, the USSR completely overhauled their program to surpass expectations. The WHO considered a vaccine of 100 million vaccinia particles per mL to be effective - the Soviet labs began churning out vaccines that were ten times that concentration. That meant they would still be potent even after losing some of the effectiveness due to heat. Just what was needed as the WHO prepared to tackle Ethiopia and India. Matt Deres (talk) 17:04, 26 December 2007 (UTC)