The potential use of smallpox as a biological weapon has led to the production and stockpiling of smallpox vaccine and the immunization of some healthcare workers. Another public health goal is the licensing of a safer vaccine that could benefit the millions of people advised not to take the current one because they or their contacts have increased susceptibility to severe vaccine side effects. As vaccines can no longer be tested for their ability to prevent smallpox, licensing will necessarily include comparative immunogenicity and protection studies in non-human primates. Here we compare the highly attenuated modified vaccinia virus Ankara (MVA) with the licensed Dryvax vaccine in a monkey model. After two doses of MVA or one dose of MVA followed by Dryvax, antibody binding and neutralizing titres and T-cell responses were equivalent or higher than those induced by Dryvax alone. After challenge with monkeypox virus, unimmunized animals developed more than 500 pustular skin lesions and became gravely ill or died, whereas vaccinated animals were healthy and asymptomatic, except for a small number of transient skin lesions in animals immunized only with MVA.

The effect of surface deposits of nylon and N -substituted nylons on the abrasion-resistance and felting shrinkage of wool has been determined. N -methoxymethyl nylons are much more effective than nylon itself, when applied from solution, in increasing the abrasion-resistance of wool fabric, but not in decreasing the felting shrinkage of the fabric. If the N -methoxymethyl nylon is first applied to the wool fabric from alcoholic solution and then hydrolyzed in situ by approximately 2N HCl, the polymer is found to confer non-felting properties on the wool. A deposit of approximately 3% by weight of polymer has been found to eliminate entirely the felting shrinkage of wool fabric under the conditions of test. The optimum degree of substitution of the nylon for the production of non-feltability is between 5% and 6% combined formaldehyde, which corresponds to between 20% and 24% —NH groups substituted.The effectiveness of these polymers in increasing abrasion-resistance and decreasing felting shrinkage is explained on the basis of their adhesion to and covering power on the wool fiber.

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Ethanolic potassium hydroxide solutions in concentrations from 0.1% to 5.0% have been used to pretreat wool effectively for the application of N-alkoxymethyl polyamides to prevent felting shrinkage. The alcoholic alkali may be used purely as a pretreatment, or the alkali can be incorporated in the alcoholic resin solution. Even when the alkali pretreatment does not in itself reduce the felting shrinkage, effective shrinkproofing is obtained with less than 1% resin based on the weight of wool.

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