BALTIMORE -- Just a few months ago, health officials all over Maryland were scrambling to prepare for a smallpox outbreak -- but that's no longer the case.

 

WBAL-TV 11 NEWS I-Team reporter David Collins has discovered that health care professionals are now more worried about safety than an outbreak.

 

Smallpox vaccinations are a part of the war against terrorism that has severely wounded widower and Native American Standing Bear Mayo. His wife, Deerheart, died of heart failure eight days after she got vaccinated against smallpox.

 

Deerheart Mayo, a recent nursing school graduate, worked at Peninsula Regional Medical Center on the Eastern Shore. She volunteered to be immunized by the Wicomico County Health Department so she could be a first responder in case of a smallpox outbreak. She passed away visiting friends in northern Virginia.

 

"I'm glad I wasn't there, I've been near people who have died. I've been near people who have died violently. I don't think I could have woke up next to my wife dead," Standing Bear Mayo said.

 

Deerheart Mayo is one of four people to die from heart failure after getting a smallpox vaccination -- and scientists are still trying to determine whether there is a link. Meanwhile, most hospitals we contacted aren't taking any chances, Collins reported

 

In fact, the 11 NEWS I-Team has discovered one of the area's largest hospitals, the University of Maryland Medical Center, has suspended its vaccination program.

 

"No one's taking any risks," the University of Maryland Medical Center's Dr. Hal Standiford said.

 

Only 10 employees have been inoculated and the hospital is screening for a pool of reserves in case there's an outbreak, but they won't be vaccinated until that happens.

 

"You have about [a] three- or four-day ... window, if you will, where you can vaccinate and still protect them," Standiford said.

 

Johns Hopkins and Howard County General hospitals are doing the same thing. Sinai Hospital is continuing to vaccinate but told the 11 NEWS I-Team that they have only two employees inoculated and they are having trouble recruiting any more volunteers.

 

Greater Baltimore Medical Center (GBMC), Anne Arundel Medical Center and Carroll County General hospitals all said they will vaccinate any volunteers who come forward. So far there are three people vaccinated at Anne Arundel Medical Center, three at GBMC and none at Carroll County General.

 

When asked if Maryland hospitals have the equipment and isolation rooms to handle a large-scale outbreak, Arlene Stephenson, Maryland's deputy secretary of health, said: "A large number of hospitals have isolation rooms, I would say probably not sufficient for a large scale problem."

 

Isolation wards like the one at Mercy Medical Center can hold six to eight patients. Each room is equipped with a machine that takes smallpox particles out of the air. Mercy is continuing to vaccinate health care workers, but is also having trouble in recruiting volunteers. So far, they have vaccinated six, Collins reported.

 

The Wicomico County Health Department, where Deerheart was vaccinated, is also continuing to vaccinate but has intensified it's screening of volunteers.

 

"I think they're taking unnecessary risks," Standing Bear Mayo said.

 

But even before the heart attacks, the urgency to vaccinate appeared to be waning. A new report by the General Accounting Office, the investigating arm of Congress, claims without explanation that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention significantly cut its recommended number of vaccinated health care workers from 500,000 to 50,000.

 

The GAO also claimed that the CDC distributed contradictory information about who should be vaccinated, sent needles that lacked safety features and underestimated the cost of the program.

 

"The hospitals, unfortunately, have not received the money they need for planning and equipment," Stephenson said.

 

Vaccinations for smallpox in the United States stopped in 1972 and the world has been free of the disease since 1980.

 

But the threat remains -- and the death of Deerheart Mayo is a tragic reminder that the war on terror will not be won without sacrifices, Collins said.

 

The CDC issued a two-page response to the GAO report that said, in part, "we concur that the CDC should provide further guidance on implementing smallpox preparedness activities within state and local health departments."

 

Stay with TheWBALChannel.com and WBAL-TV 11 NEWS for the latest health updates.