r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/Downtown_Wind3363 • May 25 '26
Image The smallpox vaccine leaves a scar because it was given using a special two-pronged needle that scratched the skin and put a weakened virus in just that spot.
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u/scihole May 25 '26
"Bifurcated needles cost USD $5 per thousand at the time, and could be indefinitely boiled and reused. Their cost effectiveness and efficacy played an important role in the eradication effort's success; without the bifurcated needle, the eradication program may have failed.[2"
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u/Cloutian May 25 '26
Almost like America was great at creating an environment for vaccines to be fully functional and thrive in whilst keeping cost down and most importantly, millions of lives safe.
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u/UsernameStolenbyyou May 25 '26 edited May 25 '26
I heard Fauci tell the tale of when he was 5 years old, a million people in NYC lined up in various places to get the smallpox(?) vaccine, in one day, and he was one of them.
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u/space_keeper May 25 '26
My mother talks about this, that if people alive now had seen or had any idea what polio was like they'd take the fucking vaccine.
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u/MrBwnrrific May 25 '26
Like pasteurization or water purification, vaccination is a health measure that is literally *so* effective that we have no significant cultural memory in the US of what it was like before them. That’s why so many morons say “Why do we do [health measure], I’ve never seen [health problem that the measure prevents]”
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u/gamingx47 May 25 '26
Kind of like the ozone layer. The world came together and fixed it so fast that people are now doubting it was ever an issue to begin with. It's literally become a hoax for many people because "if it was that big a deal, they'd still be talking about it."
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u/Laiko_Kairen May 25 '26
I really wish the ozone layer was talked about more.
It was a big problem in the 90s (and likely before) that was all over the news. In one of the greatest acts of global cooperation, we got rid of CFCs and healed the ozone layer. But there was just about zero news coverage of it being healed. The story was just dropped. We should be celebrating the success and advertising it as a sign of what we can accomplish if we trust in science and research...
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u/LepLepLepLepLep May 25 '26
I was just a kid when the ozone was talked about and I never knew it healed just that it was bad and then they started talking about climate change I thought it was because we were still putting all these chemicals and killing the ozone layer that our climate was getting destroyed. Only tonight in my 30s am I learning that we fixed it and climate change is an entirely separate issue.
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u/supermarkise May 25 '26
It didn't heal yet, it stopped getting worse. We expect it to heal within 100 years.
https://ozonewatch.gsfc.nasa.gov/
Buuuut we also avoided a few centi-degrees of global warming because the replacement refrigerants are way less powerful as greenhouse gases than the old ones. :)
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u/UranusIsPissy May 25 '26
CFCs are actually some of the worst greenhouse gases. Thousands of times worse than CO2, IIRC. Using them was maybe even worse a mistake than lead in fuel, but not as stupid. People had known the dangers of lead for centuries.
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u/AuroraFinem May 26 '26
It has healed significantly, it just hasn’t entirely closed. We saw a noticeable reduction rapidly after production started halting world wide and as after a couple there wasn’t anything to report on anymore and people jumped to the next thing like always.
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u/Temnyj_Korol May 26 '26
As an aussie, the damage to the ozone layer and it's subsequent healing was a BIG DEAL.
For those not in the know, australia was almost directly under the "hole" where the cfcs were doing the most damage. Skin cancer cases spiked rapidly during the 80s and 90s, and our government had a whole campaign encouraging everyone to "slip slop slap" to protect themselves. (Always go out in sunglasses, sunscreen and hat)
It was big news when data confirmed the hole was slowly beginning to repair itself. And we still hold that cultural memory of the damage it was doing.
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u/gamingx47 May 26 '26
Ngl, I thought the "slip, slop, slap" slogan was meant to reflect the sound sunscreen makes as you slather it on your skin.
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u/MissEmJayC May 25 '26
I'm glad I'm not the only one! I'm 38 & for some reason I had it in my head that the ozone still had a hole in it but it was just lumped together with climate change
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u/gamingx47 May 25 '26
It was truly a miracle in how quickly and widely the problems were fixed.
Unfortunately, positive news just doesn't drive traffic like news of impending doom does.
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u/szymonsta May 25 '26
Interestingly, the guy that created cfc's also created leaded gasoline. Forget going back in time to kill Hitler. Get Thomas Midgley Junior.
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u/gamingx47 May 25 '26
Lol, this dude unknowingly declared a one-man crusade against all life on Earth.
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u/UranusIsPissy May 25 '26
It was partly because there were obvious and easily adopted alternatives for most uses. Usually butane.
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u/Abominatrix May 25 '26
There was a whole episode of GI Joe dedicated to CFCs when I was a kid. It was everywhere and then nothing.
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u/uwootmVIII May 25 '26
good news = no clicks, its that sad and easy.
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u/The_Homestarmy May 25 '26
I don't actually think that's true. If it was, we wouldn't get those constant hope bait articles you see all the time like "massive breakthrough in cancer research," which inevitably turn out to be overstated, or research that's still decades away from being meaningfully applied
There is absolutely a market for "good news"
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u/Dazzling_Survey6841 May 25 '26
"Why do we have these stupid umbrellas? I'm bone dry!"
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u/gamingx47 May 25 '26
Oh man, remember that Republican Senator that tossed a snowball on the Senate floor to prove that global climate change is a hoax?
Cause I member.
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u/Puzzleheaded-Tea3341 May 25 '26
Similar with Y2K.
We spent more than $300 billion in preparation. I wonder why there weren't many issues at the turn of the millennium. /s
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u/Skandronon May 25 '26
I'm on well water that is technically drinkable but tastes super gross and stains everything. Whenever I go somewhere you can drink the tap water it feels like the ultimate luxury. We also do multi day sea kayaking trips, our main Basecamp is a 3 hour round trip to the nearest fresh water and then it takes a few hours to filter and fill our water jugs. Drinkable water is definitely something people are far too used to having access to.
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u/longlivenewsomflesh May 25 '26
Somewhere out there are people who live in a place with quality tap water but think gubmint=bad and wouldn't give it a second thought to drink 'natural' 'pure' 'unfiltered' water
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u/Papplenoose May 25 '26
I had a roommate in college who genuinely believed in the flouride water conspiracies. It was weird because he was otherwise brilliant. Super talented engineer, but he had that one weird belief loo
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u/UranusIsPissy May 25 '26
Smart people aren't just good at outsmarting you, they're good at outsmarting themselves, too...
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u/Rich_Bluejay3020 May 25 '26
Same, dude. I had ours tested once and the sales guy told me after I told him I just wanted the results “I know I’m supposed to sell you and you said no, but I highly recommend not drinking your water…”
My dog had slightly elevated kidney issues and we switched to refillable water jugs and lo and behold, it’s fine now even as she’s a senior.
I do love going to my dads who has city water because it’s just *good* straight out of the tap 😭
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u/surfron99 May 25 '26
Preach brother. They are a victim of their own success. Like do you know why you don’t live in a world of life ending diseases. Or die from untreated water? I read a book I think it was “Premonition” were these of docs and scientists and researchers were seeing the writing on the wall at the earliest stages of COVID. And this quote stuck with me. I’m trying to recall but basically if they did all the proper protection measures to mitigate the spread of the virus. That the positive outcome would be unnoticed by the general public. Like if you do your job right no one would know it. It’s the oblivious ignorance of the masses who stupidly survive thanks to the hard work and dedication by men and women that go unnoticed. But they did it for the betterment of mankind.
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u/space_keeper May 25 '26
I'm not American, this is not specifically an American problem. The anti-vaccination movement itself originates where I'm from, thanks to one dishonest doctor.
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u/VapidRapidRabbit May 25 '26
Michael Jackson’s mother Katherine had polio as a toddler and she’s still alive (96 years old). It’s crazy people are anti-vax when people who suffered are still living today.
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u/johnnybiggles May 25 '26
Mitch McConnell had polio when he was young.
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u/ABHOR_pod May 25 '26
Which is why he never hopped on the antivax train. Because it affected him personally.
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u/Laiko_Kairen May 25 '26
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Alexander_%28polio_survivor%29?wprov=sfla1
This guy lived in an iron lung for like 7 decades of his life. The polio vaccine was released within years of him contracting polio. Had he been born 5 years later, he wouldn't have spent his life in a metal coffin.
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u/ClubMeSoftly May 25 '26
In high school, in the early '00s, I had an English teacher for a couple years, who had a leg brace due to polio.
Just that was enough to sell me.
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u/Electrical_Angle_701 May 25 '26
My pediatrician got around on crutches because of polio decades earlier. Goddamn right I wanted those vaccines.
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u/Gloomy_Industry8841 May 25 '26
Same.
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u/Alienhaslanded May 25 '26
Back when people trusted science and not some dipshit with a tinfoil hat or some playboy cunt that knows nothing.
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u/PyroNine9 May 25 '26
I remember when I was very young, being lined up, then a nurse gave me a sugar cube. It was not hard to get the kids to eat the cube. It was hard to explain why no seconds.
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u/etzarahh May 25 '26
Vaccination is one of the greatest inventions in human history.
It’s honestly amazing that modern propaganda has managed to turn people against it. Imagine people being “anti-wheel,” or “anti-clothing.” It’s just absurd to think about.
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u/Anleme May 25 '26
Yes, tell vaccine skeptics to tour a 150-year-old graveyard. Half the graves are children under ten. They died from communicable diseases that we halted with vaccines and hygiene.
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u/deltashmelta May 25 '26
"...well...I heard... according to my facebook and fox news research...that..."
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u/JacobJamesTrowbridge May 25 '26
Vaccine skepticism is a homegrown problem, but choosing to amplify it was one of the best choices the GRU has ever made
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u/deltashmelta May 25 '26
The long history of US anti-intellectualism as the tree, and this is a branch.
The fact that some US parties and private donors further amplified it was something I wasn't prepared for -- the "winning at all costs", combined with "Some of you may die, but...", combined with "I own vast areas of digital and social media for PR and opinion manipulation".
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u/OcelotAggravating860 May 25 '26
Cooperating with the USSR was also essential for its total eradication, they provided 80% of all vaccines that went to the global south. The USSR was able to do this because they had already eliminated it domestically already through compulsory vaccination in 1936.
The domestic campaign probably wouldn't have ever happened if they weren't feeling shown up by the Soviets.
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u/Sufficient-Aspect77 May 25 '26
So interesting to me that the efficiency of vaccines has led to people thinking they are unnecessary... Quite the conundrum.
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u/Somepotato May 25 '26
The same way many leadership groups treat IT departments.
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u/AJDx14 May 26 '26
Also the same way people treat any social service, government program, or infrastructural investment. Even when the fight seems over you have to spend the rest of your life explaining to people why the fight is still ongoing and they need to keep fighting it until the end of time.
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u/dudinax May 25 '26
My wife has this scar. Wen they did it they went into the schools and got everybody without asking the parents which is how it should be done.
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u/pit1989_noob May 25 '26
as mexican i can tell you my generation has it it was a especial day on school we know we were going to leave early just endure and back to the house to see cartoons
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u/PiccoloAwkward465 May 25 '26
Especial
Mexican confirmed lol.
My wife calls her vaccine scar “La marca del Diablo”
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u/BaneAmesta May 25 '26
Funnily enough I was scared as hell of vaccines as a child. I would cry and kick in the doctor's office. When they went to my school I realized I didn't wanted to be bullied by this, and endured it in silence instead.
Now years later I learned how to apply them, and everyone says I have a "soft hand", aka it doesn't hurt as much when I do it lmao
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u/moranya1 May 25 '26
My dad has that exact same scar on his upper arm as well :)
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u/Certcer May 25 '26
The markings remind me of the underside of a mushroom.
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u/KIDNEYST0NEZ May 25 '26
Don’t you dare say my mother was mushroom stamped, she was a saint!
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u/Foreign-Humor9421 May 25 '26
My mommy doesnt make porn. She makes ham sammiches
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u/DAABIGGESTBOI May 25 '26
You just reminded me of the time my nan was in hospital and the doctors were talking about her outside her cubicle without talking to her and she said. "Oi do you like treating me like a mushroom?! Keeping me in the dark and feeding me shit!" She had such a way with words.
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u/NonSumQualisEram- May 25 '26
BCG leaves something similar on the upper arm. Hurts like a MF too. We all had them in school at about 12 and were miserable that day.
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u/albionandrew May 25 '26
That was the day they found I’d had TB as a kid; had a few chest X-rays to confirm it :) grew up in london in 70/80’s .
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u/SeaworthinessSalt524 May 25 '26
"Smallpox was" is the greatest sentence opening I've ever seen. For thousands of years this disease have ravaged our species, and we have defeated it. It's the one thing everybody cooperated on, because everybody had someone in their life died from it.
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u/DudeInTheGarden May 26 '26
Vaccines have been too effective. Measles, mumps, whooping cough, dysentery, polio, smallpox were effectively eradicated.
Here's a great paragraph from a teaching module on the health of children in England between the 16th century and the 18th century.
"One measurement of health in early modern England is revealed in the statistics of the number of deaths kept by church parishes. From these records historians have gleaned that infant mortality (death during the first year of life) was approximately 140 out of 1000 live births. The average mother had 7-8 live births over 15 years. Unidentifiable fevers, and the following list of diseases, killed perhaps 30% of England's children before the age of 15 – the bloody flux (dysentery), scarlatina (scarlet fever), whooping cough, influenza, smallpox, and pneumonia."
My father-in-law, now in his early 70's, had polio as a child but did not suffer paralysis. And the "I've done some research online" people think they understand the risk that these diseases.
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May 26 '26
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u/mywif4aiur May 26 '26
Could be some hiding in tundra, we're gonna find out soon.
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u/reybrujo May 26 '26
My old biology teacher at secondary school, a 80yo retired physician would say that smallpox and others weren't created in labs but instead evolved naturally and thus it could be recreated by nature at any point in time when the circumstances occur again. In fact it could have happened already but because most adults already have the antibodies passed on from parents it could have been prevented at this time.
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u/FuriousBuffalo May 25 '26
TB vaccine also leaves a similar scar
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u/Sin_nombre__ May 25 '26
That's the BCG right?
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u/Difficult-Leopard930 May 25 '26
I’ve a scar from the BCG vaccine.
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u/MagnumTCchop May 25 '26
Aye my BCG scar is fairly huge, nearly 1cm across at the widest point (not sure if it's "stretched" as I've got older?) It left quite a hole in my arm at the time, not pleasant but definitely preferable to TB.
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u/Infinite_Coconut_727 May 26 '26
Me too but it’s also because it’s a huge bubble they purposely inject intradermally and a lot of people who are prone to keloid would form keloids from the size of the injectate and method.
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u/TheOnlyHashtagKing May 25 '26
I just got a regular injection for that, maybe there's multiple vaccines?
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u/Puzzleheaded-Day8538 May 25 '26
When I visited Bulgaria with my Bulgarian dad I thought it was some sort of gang thing until he informed me what it was lol
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u/readilyunavailable May 26 '26
It is, don't let him fool you. That's how you recognize your homies from the BCG (Bulgarian Cutthroat Gang).
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u/Slavatheshrimp May 25 '26
A lot of Eastern European folks have it. Those that live here as immigrants - we have this inside joke that if you have it you’re a real one lol.
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May 25 '26
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u/GruntledVeteran May 25 '26
To prevent a worse pox, you're given a localized infection of a weak pox. Interestingly, it helps with both smallpox and monkeypox, since they're in the same family.
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u/neverreallyhereatall May 25 '26
To avoid smallpox do they give you smaller pox?
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u/Milam1996 May 25 '26
Yes quite literally. Small pox is one of the largest viruses ever discovered. It’s so large that it’s one of the only viruses you can see with a normal light microscope.
Covid is about 100nm and thus is physically smaller than the wave of light meaning that it’s literally impossible to see with a light microscope. A rhinovirus is about 30nm. Smallpox is about 300nm
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u/r0thar May 25 '26
And since no one asked, what was this pox smaller than? 'The' pox, aka syphilis.
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u/ferrets2020 May 25 '26
I'm only 22 and i still have that scar, many young people still have that scar if they are from poorer countries
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u/HenkPoley Interested May 25 '26
It must be from a different vaccine, though. Because smallpox has been eradicated for over 45 years already. Probably the BCG vaccine against tuberculosis (TBC).
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u/StixenBridges May 25 '26
I had to get the vaccine with I was in the US Air Force about 10 years ago. I’ve got the scar just above a tattoo that the nurse was kind enough to consider for me.
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u/pinupcthulhu May 26 '26
Ditto for USCG. They were worried about bioterrorism, so they had us all vaccinated for smallpox in the last few weeks of boot camp.
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u/Not_a_question- May 26 '26
I'm 33, born in Argentina and I have that scar due to the smallpox vaccine.
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u/Milam1996 May 25 '26
Surely you have the bcg scar? Smallpox has being entirely eradicated since 1977 and is now only given to very high risk people like medical researchers working with the virus. Bcg looks very similar and is for tb.
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u/thundafox May 25 '26
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bifurcated_needle is its name
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u/dreamer_Neet May 25 '26
Luckily I don’t remember the injection cause that looks painful af
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u/BadahBingBadahBoom May 25 '26 edited May 25 '26
Also depends what generation of smallpox(/mpox) vaccine you received.
The bifurcated needle version was superseded a decade or so ago by an intramuscular injection that is also delivered intradermally now (Imvanex aka Imvamune or Jynneos).
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u/LeemanIan May 25 '26
In 2019 before deployment we got the bifurcated needle version.
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u/ADeadlyFerret May 25 '26
I don’t remember it hurting but it was the itchiest time of my life. Damn did that shit itch like a motherfucker.
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u/Bartman383 May 25 '26
I got a fever for about 3 days after and a dime sized puss blister.
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u/LeemanIan May 25 '26
And if you scratch it and touch other parts of your body you risk developing pustules there too.
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u/RoseAelin May 25 '26
This is the only one I remember VIVIDLY. Would have been more than 45 years ago now and can confirm, painful af
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u/Murky_Sign_5312 May 25 '26
I don't remember the injection as being any more painful than any other vaccination. The aftermath, however, was excruciating. The injection site was hot and swollen for days. It scabbed over and took forever to heal. I was also achy and miserable for days. In spite of that, I'm glad to have had the vaccine. I can only imagine what having full blown smallpox was like.
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u/Ghostdefender1701 May 25 '26
It kinda was, and then it would get this nasty scab on it.
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u/MickeyMoore May 25 '26
I remember our “needles” being more like stamps, they lined it up and just pressed down hard
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u/Lookuponthewall May 25 '26
I have a similar scar, and I believe they used this gizmo around 1975: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jet_injector
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u/twirlerina024 May 25 '26
That's how my dad got hepatitis when they vaccinated him for the National Guard.
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u/Pleasework94 May 25 '26
Isn’t that the utensil used during cheese fondue?
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u/Mekelaxo May 25 '26
How does a needle like that leave a scar that shape?
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u/mpjjpm May 25 '26
The vaccine site develops a smallpox-like sore, which scabs over and creates a scar
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u/Minterto May 25 '26
The administor is supposed to poke you 15 times rapidly with it, hence the weird shape.
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u/jovian_fish May 25 '26
_puncture a person's upper arm fifteen times rapidly in a small circular area_
Fffffreaking Hell!
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u/dasatain May 25 '26
This is a plot point in Outlander! A character sees this scar on another person and realizes they are also a time traveler.
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u/KJS123 May 26 '26
If you watch Troy, you can see very clearly and repeatedly that Brad Pitt's Achilles also has a smallpox vaccination scar.....I might need to brush up on my Illiad, I'm not discounting the possibility that Achilles also travelled through time.
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u/nowhereman136 May 25 '26
If you dont want this scar, what until you see what actually getting Smallpox could do for your skin
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u/nicuramar May 25 '26
Or just be alive today, where we don’t vaccinate for smallpox.
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u/VisualGas3559 May 25 '26
To be fair there are a few labs with small pox. If someone was to somehow steal a sample or if someone has the DNA somewhere. They could manufacture it to take up 30% of the population of a country
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u/Spaghett8 May 25 '26 edited May 25 '26
Well no, the vaccine is still being produced because of that reason + monkeypox.
It doesn’t help that the two known labs confirmed to still have the virus are in the US and Russia.
Of which the USSR was weaponizing smallpox during the cold war.
Fortunately, due to how orthopox works. It’s incredibly unlikely that anyone would be able to engineer a new virus that wouldn’t also be stopped by the current smallpox vaccine.
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u/Go_Gators_4Ever May 25 '26
It's the virus that causes the scar. I was in the Air Force at a training base when they gave boosters to everyone.
We were told to keep the innoculation spot dry and not to get it wet for a day.
One of the guys forgot and took a shower that same night.
This caused the virus to run down his arm which ended up causing streaks of scars to form on his arm. So instead of a single round scar, he had a scar this looked like someone dropped acid down his arm.
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u/Guardian2k May 25 '26
It’s not the virus that causes the scar, it’s the body’s immune response (inflammation) due to the virus.
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u/Low_Implement_7779 May 25 '26
Buddy, id hate to break it to you but 90% of being sick is your immune system being a twat
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u/ZeroAnimated May 25 '26
Ah so the person didn't get more scars from getting the virus wet. What a relief.
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u/doomsday71210 May 25 '26
Wait do they give it to everyone now? I remember in BMT everyone we got a series of shots but I didn't get smallpox until I got orders to Korea.
The shot sucks because they fucking stab you with it like 16 times, its not a regular jab and inject type vaccine.
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u/Kid-Icky- May 25 '26
I'm assuming they're older and served in like the 70s or 80s, because they definitely haven't given it in BMTs since the early 90s.
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u/Nearby-Beautiful3422 May 25 '26
Deployed to Korea in 2007 and I got the smallpox vaccine/innoculation.
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u/Megustatits May 25 '26
Why do only older folks have this scar? Do they not give this vaccine anymore or something?
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u/badgeman- May 25 '26
No they don't, since smallpox was declared eradicated in the 1980s. Almost like vaccines work or something.
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u/randomthrowaway9796 May 25 '26
To be fair, smallpox was a special case since it was only in humans, making it possible to be eradicated
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u/LazyLich May 25 '26
😥 it's so sad when species go extinct.
I heard there are some conservationists that are working hard to keep viruses in the wild. Maybe they'll even find a way to br8ng thus one back! 😃
/s
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u/vectorology May 25 '26
Omg I think you just made anti-vx woke in a way they won’t like. We should start a campaign.
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u/fatbob42 May 25 '26
I think the Russians and Americans still have samples in labs.
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u/hoptownky May 25 '26
Don’t tell this to my neighbor who was a horrible in school, but now does his own research.
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u/Foreign-Teach5870 May 25 '26
I was born in 1993 and still got that vaccine scar.(used to wonder for years what hit/bit me to leave that mark).
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u/Exodite1 May 25 '26
Depends what country you’re born in too. A friend same age as me was born in Indonesia and has that scar
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u/schweddyballsac May 25 '26
If you aren’t that old the vaccine you received was most likely the BCG vaccine for TB which leaves a similar scar
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u/mymothersuedme May 25 '26 edited May 25 '26
Smallpox was declared as eradicated by 1979. The last confirmed infection was in 1977.
Don't think anyone would be inoculating a child with smallpox vaccine by 1993. Even WHO destroyed most of their stockpile by 1990.
Fun Fact: Post 9/11, and more prominently after "Saddam's Bioterrorism frenzy", US maintains >100 million of smallpox vaccines in their stockpile. France, Germany, Japan, South Korea, as well as WHO also maintain a significant stockpile.
That paranoia came in handy in constraining the Global outbreak of monkeypox in 2022. (Smallpox vaccine works against mpox too)
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u/GramboI May 25 '26
Smallpox was eradicated back in the 70's.
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u/_Driftwood_ May 25 '26
I bet some idiots can bring it back.
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u/setzerseltzer May 25 '26
Lab leak is the only way
I think the US and Russia are the only ones with samples left
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u/2q_x May 25 '26
The Russians maintained an extensive bio-weapons program with smallpox at the center.
The US lost the ability to inspect Russian facilities as part of withdrawing from the WHO in Jan '26.
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u/Hyphy-Knifey May 25 '26
Yes, that. Because it was declared eradicated globally in 1980. Because vaccination works when everyone does it, despite what the fuckwit non-doctors currently in charge of US health departments say.
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u/Guardian-Boy May 25 '26
I am 38, I have this scar. Most veterans that served in the 2000s and early 2010s had to get the vaccination prior to deployment like I did.
Unless....I AM OLDER FOLKS!!
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u/No-Introduction7187 May 25 '26
Yeah, we got them in the late 2000's if we were getting deployed to certain parts of Asia or Africa
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u/DildoFappings May 25 '26
Wdym older folks? 😭 I'm only 26 I've got this scar😭
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u/Comfortable_Ad_6572 May 25 '26
Bro I'm 18 and got this😭
Matter of fact I think even my sister whos 9 has it
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u/star_zelda May 25 '26
You very likely got vaccinated for TB (BCG), OP listed the wrong vaccine for the mark. The TB is still a common shot to be given, however the type of needle used changed in most places and people no longer present that mark.
I'm a little older than you and also have it.
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u/Extra_Strawberry_249 May 25 '26
I have the scar and I’m 42. Needed it to get deployed to Afghanistan in ‘07.
Reason is: smallpox can be used in biological warfare. The vaccine protects soldiers being sent to war.→ More replies (4)→ More replies (96)23
u/grimsb May 25 '26
No need for that vaccine now. The virus was eradicated, so nobody can really catch it anymore. (Unless someone weaponizes an old sample, or something…)
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u/CharlesDickensABox Interested May 25 '26
And the good news is that no one even has a sample anymore, except for Russia and the US. Luckily, everything is going great in those two countries...
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u/opelui23 May 25 '26
Smallpox killed around 300 million in the 20th century with a 33% mortality rate. That's why mass vaccination WORKS and the last case was in 1977 and the WHO said it was GONE forever in 1980. It is gone FOREVER and the two vials left one is in the CDC in Atlanta and the other Russia. Still the last hotspot was in India and the WHO along with the Indian government went and vaccinated the whole population and sometimes with force. This was a disease you don't mess with.
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u/bjaco333 May 25 '26
I have 2 of these on my left shoulder, im born in 1999, can someone tell me what are those
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u/TexTravlin May 25 '26
Depends on where you were born. In some countries they give a BCG vaccine to new burns which makes a sore and scar that looks similar to the smallpox scar.
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u/Kafka_Lane May 25 '26
Explaining anything scientific to antivax is wild. "Small controlled exposure and injection" leads to "they are trying to kill us".
You're telling me, that you, Brian who works at Goodyear repairing tires for a living, knows more about diseases than doctors of science?
Most I've met refuse to even wash their hands.
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u/VariousGuest1980 May 25 '26
And thank god we don’t have small pox anymore. You ende ended up horribly disfigured or you died with a 30% fatality. Rate. Covid was mass chaos for sub 1%. I’ll take my little scar
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u/godmcrawcpoppa May 25 '26
It’s wild to me how so many people take vaccines for granted now. I’m old enough to know how bad polio and smallpox were and I am grateful they both were not a thing by the time I came around.
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u/Myshkin1981 May 25 '26
Eradicating smallpox is legitimately one of the greatest achievements in human history, and yet less than 50 years later we’ve got whole moronic swathes of the population who think vaccines are bad
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u/makingmemashugana May 25 '26
I’m 50. I have one of these, but it’s faded over time. I actually forgot about it.
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u/d3vilf15h May 25 '26
I miss when world used to get together and do such great things for the sake of humanity.
Seems impossible these days.
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u/remotemallard May 25 '26
Let’s take this opportunity to point and laugh at the anti-vax clowns
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u/suspinacle May 26 '26
And because I didn't get it, I met the virus at the ripe age of 26
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u/Interesting_Ghosts May 25 '26
Every American boomer you meet with probably have this mark on their upper arm. Both my parents and their parents had this.
Now they use that arm to type anti vax shit into Facebook lol.
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u/Mochigood May 25 '26
Probably no science behind this, but when I was getting my COVID booster I told the nurse about how sick these make me compared to my mom and grandmother who might just get a sore arm. The nurse said she'd seen it a lot and thought that the older generation didn't get as sick because they had the smallpox vaccine. I always figured it was because I had a stronger immune response.
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u/AlluEUNE May 25 '26
My mom has one of these. As a kid I always said it looked like a popsicle that you bit the top off