A plan for mass inoculation of New Orleans citizens to become effective in the event of another world war is being prepared by the medical division of the New Orleans civil defense organization, Dr. Charles B. Odom, deputy director of civil defense in charge of the medical division, said Wednesday.
The idea is to put such a plan into operation to combat possible biological warfare, Dr. Odom explained by way of comment on a new booklet on biological warfare which has been issued by the federal government.
The plan calls for the city board of health to handle immunization of all persons who are unable to pay for a private physician. Inoculation would be for typhus, diphtheria, smallpox and cholera, he said. Persons who could afford would be expected to have the inoculation done by private physician.
Dr. Odom said that the plan was proposed by Dr. Walter P. Gardiner, city health superintendent and head of the health services section of the medical division of the civil defense organization, and has received the approval of the city board of health and the Orleans Parish Medical Society.
Dr. Gardiner Wednesday, however, declined to comment on the plan.
Dr. Odom expressed the belief that New Orleans and the rest of the United States are better prepared for germ warfare than "for any of the new types of weapons."
"The new booklet on biological warfare will do much to allay the fears the public might have about such warfare," lie said.
"We already have in this country the greatest health service the world has ever known, and through federal, state and city health departments there exists a very marked degree of protection against biological attacks."
As an example of the character of the American health services, he compared the good health of United States troops in Korea with the typhus epidemic among Chinese Communists there.
