US Preserves Smallpox For Defense

lee1 writes "The US is preserving the last remaining known strains of smallpox in case they are needed to develop bio-warfare 'countermeasures' and as a hedge against possible outbreaks in a population with no natural immunity. 451 specimens are stored in Atlanta at the Centers for Disease Control, and 120 strains at the Russian Vector laboratory in Siberia. Meanwhile, the government has contracted to pay almost $3 billion to procure 14 million smallpox vaccination doses."

Comments

Re:Duh.

[Attila Dimedici]

The thing is, right after the summary says that the U.S. is preserving the last remaining known strains it says that Russia also has some that it is preserving. So, the U.S. doesn't even have the last known strains, the Russians are also known to have some.

Re:Evils...

[RDW]

"...an outbreak that would start from where exactly?"

Maybe from here:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/2404051.stm

or here:

http://www.livescience.com/2403-climate-threat-thawing-tundra-releases-infected-corpses.html

or even here:

http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2003-12-26-smallpox-in-envelope_x.htm

Can we assume that the declared US and Russian stocks are the last viable samples anywhere on the planet..?

Re:Defense.

[HornWumpus]

Smallpox can't live more then 48 hours on blankets.

That story is an often repeated myth but is virologically impossible.

Re:Science? THREE BILLION??

[lee1]

The editors changed my linkage. The details for the part about the $3 billion can be found here:
http://gsn.nti.org/gsn/nw_20110516_8175.php

(I'm so advanced that I combined information from two sources to produce my summary.)

Re:Duh.

[lee1]

the first smallpox vaccines were derived not from smallpox itself but from a related human-transmissible disease, cowpox

Indeed, that's where the root of vaccinate comes from: latin for "cow".

Re:Duh.

[Attila Dimedici]

The problem with biological warfare is that, while it is very devestating, it is impossible to avoid significant risk of blowback on one's own civilian and military population. Even with recent advances in biological science, I think that the ability to reliably target a particular population without significant risks to other populations is still beyond the foreseeable future.

Re:long term security comes to mind

[circletimessquare]

if you already have a functional vaccine, you can make copies of it. you don't need the original virus to do that. yes, some methods depend upon the original virus to do that, but not all methods

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smallpox#Post-eradication

In 1986, the World Health Organization first recommended destruction of the virus, and later set the date of destruction to be 30 December 1993. This was postponed to 30 June 1999.[73] Due to resistance from the US and Russia, in 2002 the World Health Assembly agreed to permit the temporary retention of the virus stocks for specific research purposes.[74] Destroying existing stocks would reduce the risk involved with ongoing smallpox research; the stocks are not needed to respond to a smallpox outbreak.[75] Some scientists have argued that the stocks may be useful in developing new vaccines, antiviral drugs, and diagnostic tests,[76] however, a 2010 review by a team of public health experts appointed by the World Health Organization concluded that no essential public health purpose is served by the US and Russia continuing to retain virus stocks.[77] The latter view is frequently supported in the scientific community, particularly among veterans of the WHO Smallpox Eradication Program.[78]