# Countries that have smallpox stocks **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 6, 2001, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/countries-that-have-smallpox-stocks/85845 "2001-10-06T23:18:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![dogbutler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dogbutler/32/428_2.png) [@dogbutler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dogbutler)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2001, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/countries-that-have-smallpox-stocks/85845/1 "2001-10-06T23:18:40Z")
The news reports state that terrorists could use smallpox as a biological weapon, but the only stocks of smallpox that I know of are in Atlanta and Moscow. Does any other county have smallpox in storage? I did Google this first. ---
**Author:** ![Fern\_Forest](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/71c47a/32.png) [@Fern\_Forest](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fern_Forest)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2001, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/countries-that-have-smallpox-stocks/85845/2 "2001-10-06T23:51:52Z")
You’re right. Probably the story was premised on the possibility that a cash strapped Russian scientist might sell said Russian smallpox stash to somebody who would then unleash it on an unprepared world. For a more balanced post I’d also presume the possibility exists for a cash hungry American scientist to do the same thing. ---
**Author:** ![BobT](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8e8cbc/32.png) [@BobT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobT)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2001, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/countries-that-have-smallpox-stocks/85845/3 "2001-10-07T00:02:20Z")
There was debate a few years ago about whether or not the Russians and Americans should destroy their last remaining samples of the virus. Ultimately, neither side did. Presumably, I don’t think either side trusted the other side to follow through. ---
**Author:** ![Markxxx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5daacb/32.png) [@Markxxx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Markxxx)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2001, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/countries-that-have-smallpox-stocks/85845/4 "2001-10-07T19:27:29Z")
TIME magazine reported that Russia, Iraq and North Korea are believed to have experimented with the virus and may have stock piles of it. It also reported the Russians (as well as the Americans) have tried genetically altering the viruses and bacterias(is that right?) to make it resistant. ---
**Author:** ![dogbutler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dogbutler/32/428_2.png) [@dogbutler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dogbutler)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2001, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/countries-that-have-smallpox-stocks/85845/5 "2001-10-07T23:06:19Z")
Kim Jong-Il and Saddam have smallpox? That makes me feel better. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2001, 11:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/countries-that-have-smallpox-stocks/85845/6 "2001-10-07T23:53:40Z")
Well, if they _actually_ had smallpox, as in suffering from it, maybe it _would_ make some people feel better. The idea they may have smallpox in little vials in a deep freeze somewhere – :eek: now that’s a nasty thought. ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2001, 5:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/countries-that-have-smallpox-stocks/85845/7 "2001-10-08T05:37:55Z")
Well…the american and russian samples are the only ones which were officially registered and weren’t destroyed. But nothing could actually prevent any nation to have kept samples (everybody used to have them, for obvious reasons)unoficcially. You’ve to rely on their good faith. ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2001, 1:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/countries-that-have-smallpox-stocks/85845/8 "2001-10-15T01:49:37Z")
I was profoundly disturbed that Tommy Thompson, Secretary of the US Department of Health and Human Services, mentioned on the news today that there was some possibility of smallpox being used as a biological weapon. I mean, if _he_ is worried about it…I was always taught in science classes that there were only a handful of samples left, and that no one untoward could get ahold of them. They stopped vacinating for it before I was born, so his remarks strike me as more than a little scary. Does his mentioning it ammount to an admitance that this is a real possiblity? ---
**Author:** ![DoctorJ](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doctorj/32/2904_2.png) [@DoctorJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DoctorJ)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2001, 3:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/countries-that-have-smallpox-stocks/85845/9 "2001-10-15T03:41:58Z")
From [this 1999 consensus statement from JAMA](http://jama.ama-assn.org/issues/v281n22/ffull/jst90000.html): > [@](#): > > Recent allegations from Ken Alibek, a former deputy director of the Soviet Union’s civilian bioweapons program, have heightened concern that smallpox might be used as a bioweapon. Alibek8 reported that beginning in 1980, the Soviet government embarked on a successful program to produce the smallpox virus in large quantities and adapt it for use in bombs and intercontinental ballistic missiles; the program had an industrial capacity capable of producing many tons of smallpox virus annually. Furthermore, Alibek reports that Russia even now has a research program that seeks to produce more virulent and contagious recombinant strains. Because financial support for laboratories in Russia has sharply declined in recent years, there are increasing concerns that existing expertise and equipment might fall into non-Russian hands. Dr. J ---
**Author:** ![Holly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/48db29/32.png) [@Holly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Holly)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2001, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/countries-that-have-smallpox-stocks/85845/10 "2001-10-15T18:01:30Z")
I’d just like to take a chance to say: I told you so. Nyah, nyah, nyah. (Somehow, this isn’t making me feel any better.) A year ago, when I brought up this very question (I’d read a newspaper article saying that certain countries in the middle east were vaccinating their militaries and civilians against smallpox- and why would they need to do so if smallpox was safely contained?) you people told me I was being paranoid. Maybe I _am_ paranoid, but now you have to agree my paranoia is justified. I was one of the last kids to get the smallpox vaccine, but who knows if it’ll protect me now? My children certainly aren’t protected, and we don’t have enough vaccine at present to safeguard the general public. Anthrax and bubonic plague are at least curable with antibiotics, though a massive outbreak of either would deplete the supply of antibiotics more quickly than they could be manufactured. Smallpox is a virus and though it isn’t always deadly (unless those folks who’ve been playing with it have developed a particularly virulent and deadly strain- and we should assume they have) a widescale outbreak of smallpox would do to us exactly what it did to the Native Americans. “May you live in interesting times.” ---
**Author:** ![Markxxx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5daacb/32.png) [@Markxxx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Markxxx)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2001, 12:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/countries-that-have-smallpox-stocks/85845/11 "2001-10-16T00:17:47Z")
10 years is about it for a smallpox vaccine. Where in the world did those middle east countries get the vaccine to vaccinate their troops. Making the vaccine would require them to have the smallpox right? Smallpox mortality has been listed from 40-75 percent. That leaves a LOT of margin of error. But it was very common. Furthermore it is highly contagious. But biological warfare has the effect of no onw knows what will happen. Smallpox released could turn right around and spread and kill all the Muslims who live in worse heath conditions and aren’t as likely to have strong immune systems to begin with. Look at AIDS basically a gay disease here and a heterosexual disease in Africa. Know onw knows how a virus or bacterium will effect a whole population. ---
**Author:** ![BobT](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8e8cbc/32.png) [@BobT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobT)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2001, 2:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/countries-that-have-smallpox-stocks/85845/12 "2001-10-16T02:01:55Z")
Smallpox requires recklessness to use and most experts I have read seem to think that even Saddam Hussein isn’t that reckless to unleash any smallpox he has. With today’s transportation, you let smallpox out, it’s very likely to bounce back to you. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2001, 3:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/countries-that-have-smallpox-stocks/85845/13 "2001-10-16T03:18:17Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Markxxx \* > **Where in the world did those middle east countries get the vaccine to vaccinate their troops. Making the vaccine would require them to have the smallpox right?** Nope. According to the [Centers for Disease Control](http://www.bt.cdc.gov/DocumentsApp/FactSheet/SmallPox/About.asp), the the vaccine against the smallpox virus (_variola_) is made from the _vaccinia_ virus. ---
**Author:** ![Malice](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/278dde/32.png) [@Malice](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malice)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2001, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/countries-that-have-smallpox-stocks/85845/14 "2001-10-16T19:02:41Z")
For more than you want to know about smallpox, its past use and potential future use as a bioweapon, its effects, vaccination protection (or probable lack thereof after 10 years), treatment (basically, the lack thereof) – interesting reading and truly depressing photos are available at the CDC website. [http://www.bt.cdc.gov/Agent/Smallpox/SmallpoxConsensus.pdf](http://www.bt.cdc.gov/Agent/Smallpox/SmallpoxConsensus.pdf) Pretty much confirms your worst-case scenario. “A clandestine aerosol release of smallpox, even if it infected only 50-100 persons to produce the first generation of cases, would rapidly spread in a now highly susceptible population, expanding by a factor of 10 to 20 times or more with each generation of cases.”