Smallpox vaccination and adverse cardiac events.

lion recipients were reported; the next day, after noting that only 200,000 additional persons had received vaccine, the total swelled to 4.4 million (9). These data reflect the difficulties intrinsic to managing such a massive program. The discrepancy may simply be a case of not adding columns of numbers in a systematic way; however, the fuzzy numbers do have a certain appeal to the modern, more cynical reader. Whatever occurred, understanding the specifics of “the great vaccination miracle” of 1947 is important for maintaining equilibrium during our current smallpox vaccination program and any future programs directed at now-unanticipated infections. Not just New York City’s, but the entire country’s sense of confidence that it can handle a major rapid vaccination or pill distribution campaign leans very heavily on the apocryphal vaccine campaign of April 1947. Yet, as described above, there may be much less to the miracle than meets the eye.