smallpox vaccination?

[Mark Jude Hyman]

Ian sez:
>I'm not sure what the official guidelines are, but I understood that here 
>at the Dana-Farber there was concern that the vaccination might be as 
>dangerous as working with vaccinia unvaccinated would be.  The eventual 
>conclusion, I think, was that unvaccinated people did not require 
>vaccination to work with the vector.  (I'm already vaccinated, so I 
>didn't pay close attention to the discussion, but that seems to be the 
>gist of it.)  So you may want to check very carefully with your local 
>safety office on recommendations.

Thanks, Ian. CDC recommends that anyone working with vaccinia be up to date on
their vaccine with 10 year boosters. They cite the ill effects of inadvertent
inoculation with w.t. vaccinia in the eye, for instance, as well as the danger
of being infected by recombinants. Since the function of the protein I'm
studying is unknown, I certainly don't want it being expressed somewhere in my
body! :-)