Bioterror Fears Prompt U.S. to Keep Its Smallpox Cache
18 January 2011
By Betsy McKay, Wall Street Journal
The U.S. and Russia will fight international efforts this week
to set a deadline to destroy the last known stocks of smallpox,
saying the deadly virus is needed for research to combat
bioterrorism.
Members of the World Health Organization meet on Wednesday to
begin debating the future of what is left of what was one of the
world's most lethal viruses before it was eradicated more than 30
years ago: samples kept in tightly guarded freezers at the Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta and a Russian
government lab near Novosibirsk.
The U.S. says it needs to maintain the virus samples to develop
new drugs and vaccines to counter a potential bioterror attack or
accidental release of smallpox from an unsanctioned stock. "Our
position is that we need to have the virus collections maintained
for the foreseeable future," said a U.S. official familiar with the
matter.
Full article
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