About three years ago, I remembered hearing that there was a debate over what to do with the remaining small pox viruses. I guess that there were only a couple viruses left and they were in containment. There was a debate on if we should destroy them all. Why didn’t we do this?
I think that they didn’t want to wipe it off the face of the planet because they thought it might be useful in helping cure future diseases.
I thought that the only remaining smallpox was in deep freeze at some military installation in Germany…
The smallpox is kept frozen at the CDC in Atlanta and some facility near Moscow, I believe. There was debate several years ago about whether to destroy it or not, and one argument was that in the event that terrorists had obtained some of the virus, we needed to keep it around to make the vaccine. Sounds good to me–can the vaccine be made without the virus?
The debate actually goes back to the early 1980s when the World Health Organization declared smallpox eradicated. The advocates of keeping samples of the virus around made two arguments:
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The fact that there were no new outbreaks for several years didn’t necessarily mean it had completely disappeared. There may have been isolated outbreaks in 3rd world countries that weren’t diagnosed, and just waiting to jump back into a general epidemic.
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No one could REALLY be sure that only responsible health organizations had samples of the virus. At the time, the big threats were Iran and Libya, but the feeling was there was always some kook out there with a few million dollars who could get his hands on enough virus to wipe out a city or two.
So far so good. This is a general question about a debate. I just want to give fair warning that we’re not going to let this turn this into a debate about a debate. Okay?
bibliophage
moderator GQ
What, no one else heard the argument that it was morally repugnant to delibrately cause the extinction of another life form, however repulsive that life form might be?
Although if there was ever a case for doing so in self-defense I’d say smallpox would be a good candidate.
Clinton was president when this last came up, and he was one who fought to keep the culture in Atlanta for “research” purposes. It also was apparent that the USSR wasn’t going to destroy theirs. Here is Cecil’s current column about smallpox: : How long does a smallpox vaccination protect you?
One other problem with destroying smallpox: if “we” destroy our smallpox, we don’t know that it is eradicated, only that we can’t use it to study vaccines or whatever. Eradication only happens when “they” also destroy theirs - and maybe not even then (eg see above). How can we ever know it’s eradicated?
Huh? Does this really matter all that much? Or were you just joking? I’m prepared to be banned if necessary, but I just can’t seem to bring myself to be enough of a jerk to do the things necessary to get my life back from the BMDS (Bait Mope Dessage Sword).
Anyway, my two cents (maybe not worth even that), is that there is a lot to be learned from smallpox. It had not been sequenced in 1980, and the vaccine then in use might not have been the best for a number of reasons, multiple pricks (no giggling Bush twins!) ten year effectiveness, scarring. The serious question would really have been whether the security/safety measures were tight enough. Even if they were not, someone infected can still benefit from the vaccine. Also, presumably the stock of smallpox would have not been “weapons grade”.
Yes, it is possible to make smallpox vaccine without smallpox virus. In fact, I’m pretty sure that that was the usual case for smallpox: You don’t want to use the real thing if there’s a less dangerous alternative. So far as I know, smallpox vaccine is made from cowpox, which has a similar enough structure to be effective, but is far less dangerous in humans.