News release: National

July 8, 2002

For more information, call:
Laura H. Marshall
Kaiser Permanente
Phone: (510) 271-5826
E-mail: Laura.H.Marshall@kp.org

Smallpox vaccine study begins in Oakland

Kaiser Permanente Research

Oakland, CA – At the Oakland Medical Center today, volunteers in a new study are getting vaccinated against smallpox for the first time. Kaiser Permanente's Vaccine Study Center is one of four sites in the U.S. participating in a study that will test the effectiveness of two versions of vaccine; one a diluted version of the current smallpox vaccine, the other derived from an almost 50-year-old store of vaccine recently discovered in a freezer owned by vaccine manufacturer Aventis Pasteur.

Study Center co-director Dr. Steve Black leads the research at the Oakland site.

"In the past year, I think we've all become more aware of the possibility of a bio-terrorist attack in the United States," says Dr. Black. "I hope we never need to use this vaccine again, but it's important to make certain that if we do it will be available and it will work. If we can show that this vaccine stock is still effective, it will go a long way toward making a dose of smallpox vaccine available for everyone in the U.S."

Concerns about the disease reignited with last fall's bioterrorist anthrax cases in Florida, Washington DC and New York. There are stores of smallpox kept in a few places around the world, and the highly-contagious disease has often been named a likely candidate for biowarfare.

Routine smallpox vaccination ended in the United States in 1971. Ten years later, the world was declared "smallpox-free," and routine vaccination stopped worldwide.

Most people under the age of 30 have not been vaccinated against the disease, and it's not clear that those who did receive smallpox vaccinations prior to 1971 still have any immunity. This study is being conducted at Kaiser Permanente's Vaccine Study Center in Oakland, California, as well as at the University of Iowa, Baylor College of Medicine, and Vanderbilt University.

About 50 healthy people between the ages of 18 and 32 will participate in the study site in California. In Oakland they'll start receiving the vaccine Monday, July 8th, 2002. The study will observe participants' reactions to the vaccine and gauge its effectiveness. Vaccination should be complete by the end of July. (Kaiser Permanente members in the Bay area can get enrollment information by calling 866-604-1266.)

Kaiser Permanente has research centers in California, Oregon, Hawaii, Georgia, Colorado, Maryland, and Ohio. Results of research conducted by Kaiser Permanente physicians and investigators have been published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, the New England Journal of Medicine, the American Journal of Public Health, Pediatrics, and other widely-read peer review medical journals.

Kaiser Permanente is America's leading integrated health care organization. Founded in 1945, it is a non-profit, group-practice prepayment program with headquarters in Oakland, California. Kaiser Permanente serves the health care needs of 8.3 million members in 9 states and the District of Columbia. Today, it encompasses Kaiser Foundation Health Plan, Inc.; Kaiser Foundation Hospitals; and the Permanente Medical Groups, as well as an affiliation with Group Health Cooperative based in Seattle.

Nationwide, Kaiser Permanente includes approximately 123,000 technical, administrative and clerical employees and about 11,000 physicians representing all specialties.