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A Box of Forgotten Smallpox Vials Was Just Found In an FDA Closet

Posted by Soulskill on from the thanks-for-making-me-feel-safe dept.

Jason Koebler writes: The last remaining strains of smallpox are kept in highly protected government laboratories in Russia and at the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta. And, apparently, in a dusty cardboard box in an old storage room in Maryland. The CDC said today that government workers had found six freeze-dried vials of the Variola virus, which causes smallpox, in a storage room at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland last week. Each test tube had a label on it that said "variola," which was a tip-off, but the agency did genetic testing to confirm that the viruses were, in fact, smallpox.

9 of 120 comments (clear)

  1. And I thought by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Forgetting my car keys was a big deal....

    1. Re:And I thought by mythosaz · · Score: 4, Funny

      I'm not gay, but twenty bucks is twenty bucks.

    2. Re:And I thought by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 5, Funny

      It didn't exterminate entire civilizations: leaving a pitiful remnant of shell-shocked survivors to envy the dead and wonder why their gods had forsaken them amidst the ruins of their culture is an important part of the smallpox outreach approach!

  2. Smallpox. Brasil put down. Which is most bad? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Funny

    In the wild. And Brasil got its hiney beaten to a pulp. Which is badder?

  3. Re:Um.... by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 5, Funny

    Wasn't the rule of thumb "Take off and nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure."?

  4. Re:Ancient Demon Discovered by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 5, Funny

    It's a trifle less dramatic because most ancient evils can resist conventional incineration...

    The tales of "Pandora's autoclave" and "Bilbo 'biohazard' Baggins transports some stuff to the nearest incinerator" just haven't caught the public imagination.

  5. I always suspected... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    I'm glad smallpox has finally come out of the closet.

  6. But don't worry... by Arkh89 · · Score: 4, Funny

    Don't worry, the box has already filled a complaint to Google in order to remove all search results related to this story...
    And it will gone for good...

  7. Re:Ancient Demon Discovered by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    The tales of (...) "Bilbo 'biohazard' Baggins transports some stuff to the nearest incinerator" just haven't caught the public imagination.

    Frodo Baggins, on the other hand...