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A comment on Should Smallpox Be Put To Death?.

Re:Should Smallpox Be Put To Death? by nagrom on Saturday May 14, 2011 @06:56AM (#2547474)
The question is unnecessarily emotional and anthropomorphizes smallpox - smallpox hates that. The question is really "There is a threat contained in labs in the US and Russia. Should we eliminate it, or hold onto it for future research and as a backup for vaccinations in case of other, undeclared stocks?" This breaks down into a whole set of questions, I guess.

What is the probability of the virus escaping from the labs in Georgia and Siberia? What is the probability that there are undeclared stocks of the virus elsewhere? If the second is greater than the first, don't destroy the stocks because you may need them to recreate the vaccine. If the second is less than the first, by how much? And what is the consensus on risk appetite? How well can you ensure that the stocks really are destroyed if they are so ordered to be?

This should tell you the best answer based on safety.

The next set of questions relate to what can be learned from the current stocks. Is there an active research program? Is there a current list of things to learn, or are we just holding onto it 'in case'? Has there been a case that we were glad to have virus stocks that were previously held to be useless?

If there is no obvious gain from holding onto the stock for research and the most significant threat from the virus is accidental release, then destroy the stocks. Otherwise, hold onto them - you can't recreate the stocks from nothing yet and you can always destroy them later.

My gut tells me that we should hold onto them. I'm always loathe to throw opportunities away and that's really what these stocks represent.

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Re:Should Smallpox Be Put To Death? by araneae on Saturday May 14, 2011 @07:32AM (#2547521)
Agreed. I actually met a guy a week ago that's working on monkey pox- the next big pox threat. He told me that it's a growing problem and more people are getting infected by it in Africa- larger than what would be explained by the fact that people have stopped vaccinating for small pox. It suggests that monkey pox is an "up and coming" virus. So there's active research on pox, and it's silly to simple throw it away.

The probability of the CDC's stock escaping is really very small, and let's face it, if we got rid of it once we could get rid of it again.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Should Smallpox Be Put To Death? by state_machine on Saturday May 14, 2011 @09:24AM (#2547619)
It was probably easier to get rid the first time than it would be a second time given the increase in air travel and density in population centers that has occurred since then.
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Re:Should Smallpox Be Put To Death? by bhickey on Saturday May 14, 2011 @10:47AM (#2547726)
Smallpox is "easy" to get rid of because it's visible. The infected present with lesions. It also isn't contagious while it incubates.

Contrast this with polio, where there are about a thousand infections per every paralysis. Thanks to a couple of ignorant leaders who claimed that the polio vaccine is a Western conspiracy to sterilize African girls, it's spreading again. Great.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Should Smallpox Be Put To Death? by araneae on Saturday May 14, 2011 @10:45AM (#2547723)
The reasons given in the article for smallpox being able to be eradicated the first time was because

a) It has no animal reservoirs

b) The latent period of infection is very short

c) There's an effective vaccine

None of those things would be different the second time around, unless the viruses itself was changed.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Should Smallpox Be Put To Death? by sorbus on Saturday May 14, 2011 @01:05PM (#2548048)
> don't destroy the stocks because you may need them to recreate the vaccine.

It's worth noting that the US has a gigantic stockpile of smallpox vaccine already - and they're actually increasing the size of the stockpile because of worries about bioterrorism (in 2010 20 million doses of an updated and safer vaccine were added to the stockpile[1]). The vaccine is made with cowpox, so smallpox samples are not required for its production.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2010-05-25-smallpox25_ST...

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Should Smallpox Be Put To Death? by martincmartin on Saturday May 14, 2011 @09:13AM (#2547609)
What is the probability that there are undeclared stocks of the virus elsewhere? ... don't destroy the stocks because you may need them to recreate the vaccine.

If there was an outbreak, couldn't we quickly isolate the virus and have our stocks back?

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Should Smallpox Be Put To Death? by nagrom on Saturday May 14, 2011 @12:49PM (#2548008)
Probably, but it would certainly cost human lives and effort. I'm not au fait with vaccine creation, so I cannot answer whether it is technically possible, but it seems probable.
[ Parent | on HN ]