The National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC) released a report on smallpox and smallpox vaccine that criticizes recommendations by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) to militarize the public health infrastructure during state-declared "public health" emergencies.

In the report, NVIC called for full testing of both old and new smallpox vaccines before release, warning that the old smallpox vaccine was never tested in clinical trials. Even the CDC admits it is so dangerous that it cannot be used on a mass basis today, the NVIC stated.

In an editorial, NVIC co-founder and president Barbara Loe Fisher criticized a federal plan urging state health officials to use the state "militia" to arrest, imprison and force vaccination and medication on Americans and be exempt from liability for any injury or death that results.

The plan "treats American citizens like runaway slaves in need of subjugation" said Fisher. "America should have a sound, workable emergency plan in place in the event of a bioterrorism attack, but not one that places the life and liberty of the majority in the hands of an elite few, who will have the power to take both from citizens without their consent"

The proposed legislation would also give health officials control of all roads and the power to seize homes, cars, telephones, fuel, food, firearms, prescription drugs and alcohol. It has already been introduced in Massachusetts.

A non-profit, educational organization founded in 1982 by parents of vaccine injured children, NVIC serves as a consumer watchdog on vaccine development and policy making. NVIC advocates the institution of safety and informed consent protections in the mass vaccination system and basic science research into genetic and other biological factors which place some individuals at high risk for vaccine injury and death.