P and volunteering for small pox vacinations?

[flora_petal]

A member of my family is a volunteer type person as a habit. several months ago signed up for the training intended to help vacinate people in case of a small pox outbreak. Everything was fine until we got a notice that said that anyone who had psoriasis, or had a family member with P could not get a small pox vaicination, or participate in the volunteer work. ???? what gives. I am old enough, (HA) to have lived through the vacinitaions in the past, and have 2 visible scars from small pox vacine, and am sure I had a third, from memory. So, I have P, was vacinated years ago, but cannot be exposed to small pox????? And somehow this relates to my offspring being able to get small pox vacine??? Can someone explain this theory to me?????? Thanks in advance.

[floridian]

I found one article that suggests that psoriasis is not a problem for getting smallpox vaccinations, although the article was written from Sweden and may not reflect the official policy of decision-makers near you.

Psoriasis is no obstacle to smallpox vaccination
Lakartidningen. 1976 Oct 13;73(42):3548-9. Swedish. No abstract available. No authors listed PMID: 979422

There are a handful of articles on other vaccines triggering reactions in people with psoriasis, but this does not seem to be a major concern - some of the articles were case reports of koebner reaction, which is not surprising at all. A few reports of systemic reactions, but again, not surprising given millions of people with psoriasis getting vaccinated over the past several decades. I am guessing that since the smallpox program was sucessful and discontinued decades ago, that most people who are making policy now are not experts with first hand experience ...

There was a similar discussion about donating blood/psoriasis recently. Some people were turned away, when in fact, the guidelines do not ban people with psoriasis from donating. The point for drawing blood has to be clear from inflammation, and there are restrictions for a few medicines that we might have taken. The consensus from that discussion was that some members of the medical community need a refresher course on what psoriasis is, and how it affects (or usually doesn't) things that involve blood and needles.

[chaimFL]

Here is an old article from the NPF on the subject.

http://www.psoriasis.org/news/news/2...9_smallpox.php

[chaimFL]

The letter is definitely more stict than normal guidlines for vaccination.

Under normal circumstances you can get a smallpox vaccine if you have psoriasis, but are in remission. Once you have visible lesions you are asked to refrain unless an actual outbreak or imminent threat takes place. I'm pretty sure it's because smallpox can be passed via open sores and there is some concern with not only P sufferers, but anyone who suffers from a condition that creates open sores.

[flora_petal]

I spoke to a person in charge of the volunteer program. She indicated that the "official" P notice that we got was overblown. She said that a person with P would not be allowed to give the shot to others, which is OK BY ME. She also said that they NEED volunteers for many other jobs associated with an emergency, and seemed anxious to sign me, or any other volunteers. They need people to do paperwork, etc. I tried to put her on the spot about the P, she seemed to think that smallpox would be theoreticly harder on persons with P. My family member does not have P. She also stated that this program is for homeland security type stuff, the volunteers are need for any type of emergency, so smallpox idea is a small part of the program.
I am not afraid of the vacine, as I had it years ago. I was shocked to see that a person who is kin to me, but does not have P, would be excluded, and very curious to prove why.
I also see from the article sent in above, that there is a big difference between me, I take no drugs for my P, and a person who is taking the immune system supression type drugs. I had not thought of that, as I consider my immune system to be supped up and doing excess duty. Thanks for everyones reply. I will be intrested to see what the CDC says about this in the future. be well, flora