President Receives His Vaccination Against Smallpox

President Bush received a smallpox vaccination Saturday, but stressed that he did so in his role as commander in chief and not because most Americans need to worry about a new outbreak of the deadly disease.

Two weeks ago, Bush ordered nearly half a million U.S. troops to be immunized against smallpox. Those who serve in the “high-risk parts of the world ... could be on the front lines of a biological attack,” he said.

The administration also recommended that some 439,000 public health workers and emergency doctors be vaccinated against smallpox as well.

If there was a surprise outbreak of the disease, they would be called upon first to treat the ill.

The vaccine is believed to be safe for most healthy people. Mild reactions such as soreness in the arm or fever are common.

Though serious complications are rare, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated last year that one in a million people would die from an initial vaccination.

“As commander in chief, I do not believe I can ask others to accept this risk unless I am willing to do the same,” Bush said during the Dec. 13 announcement.

The president was given a vaccination in his left arm about noon Saturday, and an hour later left by helicopter for the Camp David retreat in the Maryland mountains. He had received the same vaccination as a child.

“The president feels fine, and there are no side effects,” said Jeanie Mamo, a White House spokeswoman.

Bush said neither his family nor his staff would be vaccinated, and administration officials said they did not recommend that the general public undergo the vaccination for smallpox.

To emphasize the point, Tommy G. Thompson, the secretary of Health and Human Services, announced last week that he does not plan to be vaccinated. It wasn’t known Saturday whether Vice President Dick Cheney planned to be inoculated.

The last known incidence of smallpox was in Somalia in 1977, and the contagious plague was considered officially eradicated by the World Health Organization in 1980.

But U.S. officials believe the threat has not been entirely eliminated.

“We know that the smallpox virus still exists in laboratories, and we believe that regimes hostile to the United States may possess this dangerous virus,” Bush said.

One such regime is Iraq, and a U.S. attack could provoke a counterattack with biological weapons. Terrorists also could employ the virus as a weapon, officials say.

“America has stockpiled enough vaccine ... to inoculate our entire population in the event of a smallpox attack,” Bush said.

But some national medical groups have questioned the administration’s drive to produce large quantities of the vaccine and to inoculate health care workers.

They say that the cost diverts resources from more immediately dangerous diseases such as tuberculosis and the measles, and that the risk from the vaccine outweighs the benefits.