Experts debate destroying last smallpox viruses

[The Northerner]

LONDON – Smallpox, one of the world's deadliest diseases, eradicated three decades ago, is kept alive under tight security today in just two places — the United States and Russia.

Many other countries say the world would be safer if those stockpiles of the virus were destroyed.

Now for the fifth time, at a World Health Organization meeting next week, they will push again for the virus' destruction. And again it seems likely their efforts will be futile.

U.S. and Russian government officials say it is essential they keep some smallpox alive in case a future biological threat demands more tests with the virus. They also say the virus samples are still needed to develop experimental vaccines and drugs.

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110513/ap_on_he_me/eu_med_destroying_smallpox

[PDJane]

1. What they are, is a potential weapon.

I would like them destroyed, too, in the same way as I would like all nuclear material to be neutralized somehow.

Neither one is likely to happen.

[Very_Boring_Name]

2. Everything is a potential weapon

Shall we get rid of flag poles too, as their metal can be melted down and used for bomb casings?

[PDJane]

4. That's a trite response to a serious objection......

and it's a puerile argument.

The scale of destruction from flagpoles and baseball bats is not on the scale of destruction from nuclear weapons and smallpox. Altering smallpox could, conceivably destroy mammalian life on the planet, in the same way that nuclear contamination is a very slow death; we become less able to deal with it as time goes on, in the same way that pollution is destroying the genetic pool, bit by bit.

[Maru Kitteh]

8. Except for the fact that it's probable several TONS of Variola went missing from the USSR weapons

program. Material that could remain, anywhere.

[WolverineDG]

26. So keep on vaccinating against it nt

[ZombieHorde]

3. Difficult choice. nt

[AlecBGreen]

15. do we have the technology to...

... digitize the virus, in other words, can we record the ATCG's of the smallpox virus and keep that on file but destroy all physical specimens? :shrug:

[Keith Bee]

5. Gotta prove OUR stockpile is BIGGER than THEIRS!

And make dem Russkies suck on it! (belch!)

[BoWanZi]

6. How are we going to have a star wars defense with smallpox?

[Warren DeMontague]

7. Get rid of it.

That's my vote.

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

19. You first

I'd love to destroy my stash of the virus, but how do I know you will destroy yours? So I gotta keep some, just in case you keep some.

It's been used as a weapon before, likely will again.

[Warren DeMontague]

21. You mean on blankets against the Native Americans?

What a ridiculous argument. In our interconnected, 21st century world, me using smallpox on you would be me using smallpox on ME.

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

22. With a little planning, prior to release of the weapon,

I'd expect whoever has the smallpox would be creating a stock of vaccine, to prevent the suicidal effect you describe.

The only reason "smallpox on a blanket" could work, if it was purposely administered that way, is that the Europeans had some immunity built up due to exposure, and the native population did not.

Whether the release of smallpox on the native population was an accident or on purpose, the effect would be the same, near annihilation.

[Cali_Democrat]

9. Google smallpox images

Holy shit!

[melm00se]

10. nature is an highly flexible

entity...something that is here today can be gone tomorrow and vice versa. who knows? something like it might pop up 20 years from now that may require the use of variola as starting point for a cure.

But wait! there is none to be found.

i say keep it.

[Mr. Jefferson]

13. Excellent point!

[SidDithers]

14. Good post...

was writing pretty much the same thing.

:thumbsup:

Sid

[eridani]

11. As long as we have the genetic code, what do we need with the actual virus? n/t

[The Backlash Cometh]

12. Why do they need them?

If it surfaces again, they can get samples from the infected to create a vaccine.

[Randy_P]

16. See #1

Bioweaponry.

[Jim Lane]

17. I could never support the deliberate extinction of a species.

Even that one.

I'm not at all religious, but I find myself having borderline religious feelings when I think about humans "playing God" and wiping out another species. It just feels so wrong.

[readmoreoften]

18. You'd risk killing another 80 million people to save a virus.

Okay, whatever.

[Jim Lane]

23. I understand the pragmatic argument

A disaster is unlikely, but it could happen -- and usually I'm a pragmatist. When I likened my view to religion, that was with a sense of embarrassment, because I'm a quasi-militant agnostic.

There's just something about extinction that gives me the willies. I admit that I can't give you any careful, logical argument.

[Warren DeMontague]

24. That's completely insane.

It's a fucking virus. It's ONLY function on planet Earth is to infect humans and make them very, very sick.

It's barely 'alive', much less a 'species'.

[Jim Lane]

25. On the nature of viruses

I understand that viruses reproduce only by taking over a host's cells. Never before, however, had I heard it argued that a virus isn't a species.

Your comment made me curious -- not enough to give it a full-court press in terms of research, but at least enough to check the Wikipedia article on , where I found this: "The second half of the 20th century was the golden age of virus discovery and most of the 2,000 recognised species of animal, plant, and bacterial viruses were discovered during these years."

That supports my understanding that a virus is a species. The deadliest form of smallpox is caused by a virus with the species name Variola major.

Do you have any information indicating that a virus is not a species?

Of course, whether scientists classify it as a species isn't dispositive of the question of destroying the last known specimens, but since you raised the point, I'd like to be sure I have the right answer.

[Warren DeMontague]

28. Try "virus classification", also on wikipedia.

virus classification is the subject of ongoing debate and proposals. This is mainly due to the pseudo-living nature of viruses, which are not yet definitively classified as living or non-living. As such, they do not fit neatly into the established biological classification system in place for cellular organisms.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virus_classification

It does, however, look like the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses (who knew?) HAS broken them down, somewhat, into 'species'. But Like I said, they're right on the line between 'alive' and 'not alive'.. maybe slightly more alive than a prion, but not by much.


Apparently, there are a lot of different ways to define 'species', as well. Some of those classifications viruses clearly do NOT fill, others they do.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Species#Biologists.27_working_definition

[Shandris]

20. It's not a question, really. The fact that such a disease manifested in the first place...

...shows that it CAN manifest again. Over a sufficiently long time frame, it's more a matter of WHEN it will appear again. And when it does, we will want to be able to get the vaccine being produced on ~DAY ONE~. Response time is crucial with smallpox. Some of you are talking about bioweaponry...yah, there's a risk there. Let it come up out of nature again, a single solitary case SOMEWHERE, and that person hops on a plane, passing it to 60 others, who ~each~ land in an airport and pass it to a thousand others, who each... By the time it starts showing symptoms, you've doomed the whole WORLD.

Captain Trips, anyone?

Put it in a multinational satellite, heavily hardened, if you must. But keep the samples.

[Bucky]

27. I just hope that PETA joins in and starts protesting in this debate

Save the Viruses! Bacteria are people too!