David Bloom's death tied to smallpox shot?

[Guest guest]

BIOLOGICAL WAR-FEAR

David Bloom's death

tied to smallpox shot?

NBC correspondent possibly victim of 'toxic vaccine' before war in Iraq

 

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Posted: May 8, 2003

1:00 a.m. Eastern

 

http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=32460

 

© 2003 WorldNetDaily.com

 

Is the death of NBC News correspondent David Bloom during Operation Iraqi

Freedom the result of a vaccination he received before the war?

 

That question is being raised in connection with a CBS News report which says

the federal government is doing a sudden about-face and will let states stop

administering the high-risk smallpox shot.

 

 

David Bloom

 

The 39-year-old Bloom, who was embedded with the U.S. Army's 3rd Infantry

Division outside Baghdad and co-anchor of the ''Today'' show weekend editions,

died of an apparent blood clot several weeks after getting both the smallpox

and anthrax vaccines.

 

In the days before the fighting began, the U.S. government was rushing to

inoculate a half-million health care workers to help in the event of any bio-

terror attack. So far, only 35,000 of the targeted workers have been

vaccinated.

 

As WorldNetDaily reported, just after President Bush outlined his plan to take

a pre-emptive strike against the possibility that terrorists would use smallpox

as their next weapon of choice against Americans, many emergency medical

providers refused to participate amid the risk of side effects and the threat

of liability issues.

 

" This is a toxic vaccine. We should only use it in people who need it, " Dr.

Brian Strom of the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine told CBS. " And

we need a few weeks or months to just step back and say let's replan the plans

to see how many people need to get the vaccine before we continue on with it. "

 

Smallpox is a deadly but preventable disease. Most Americans who are 34 or

older had a smallpox vaccination when they were children. By 1972, the risk of

smallpox was so remote that routine vaccinations were discontinued in the

United States.

 

The smallpox plan for troops came as the government weathered controversy over

its anthrax inoculation. As previously reported by WND, hundreds of military

personnel refused that mandatory vaccine. This after some 100,000 Persian Gulf

War veterans got sick with a still-unexplained syndrome many suspect has to do

with vaccines they were given and the possible exposure to chemical or

biological agents.

 

According to the CBS report, an aggressive surveillance program designed to

detect dangerous trends recently uncovered one: 11 cases of unusual heart

inflammation among military troops who got the smallpox vaccine; three civilian

deaths are also under investigation.

 

But Bloom's death was not counted among the vaccine-related fatalities, though

it should have been, says Strom, since the reporter had the smallpox shot and

died within a period of weeks.

 

 

Bloom among 'embedded' reporters

 

 

It's possible Bloom's case went mistakenly uncounted since private citizens are

monitored by a civilian system, while troops are tracked by the military. It

remains unclear who – if anyone – is monitoring the hundreds of civilian

journalists who embedded with U.S. forces.

 

Bloom's case would make four deaths under investigation for a possible link to

the smallpox vaccine.

 

 

 

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Related stories:

 

Bush smallpox plan takes a shot

 

The bioterror bible

 

NBC correspondent David Bloom dies in Iraq

 

 

 

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Related columns:

 

New smallpox vaccine policy sane, sensible and safer

 

Urgent: Don't procrastinate! Vaccinate!

 

 

 

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