I found an article titled WHO to decide fate of Smallpox Stock, and was written by Declan Butler (2011). On the Nature News website which is the world’s most highly cited interdisciplinary science journal, according to the 2010 Journal Citation Reports Science Edition (Thomson Reuters, 2011). He wrote about the upcoming debate regarding the destruction of the Small Pox Virus.
Health ministers from the World Health Organisation’s (WHO’S) 193 members of state were due to meet to debate whether or not the last two known remaining stocks of the virus that causes smallpox.
Some scientists believe that the smallpox variola stocks should be maintained. They believe stocks are helping the development of new countermeasures such as drugs, vaccines and diagnostics in case smallpox should reappear. However my other article that I was given states that “The situation with antiviral drugs therefore resembles that with vaccines. With little justification for virus retention for the purpose of drug development (because two advanced drug candidates already exist) (Hammond.2011). This shows that there is no need to keep the virus for this purpose and leads me to believe that they are trying to use this as another reason in their argument to keep the vaccine.
After the eradication of Smallpox the WHO decided existing lad stocks should be destroyed to eliminate the risk of accidental release, a deadline of 1993 was set. By 1984 this was more or less achieved as 74 laboratories had either destroyed or transferred to the two WHO sanctioned repositories. But is the last two sanctioned repositories that the debate is about.
Even though a deadline of 1993 was set two sanctioned repositories still remain. The WHO however has repeatedly pushed back the date due to pressure from developed countries; these include United States, who want to continue research on the virus. However it is developing countries that would probably bear the brunt of any accidental release have long backed the destruction plan. They believe that Smallpox research is a dangerous luxury, as accidental release could be catastrophic. This has previously occurred when a photographer at Birmingham university accidently got the virus on her skin and died. (BBC.2011)
Many scientists also argue that destroying the stocks would do little to protect the world from Smallpox, because it is now possible to recreate the virus from its genome. (naturenews.2011). If this is the case then there really is no need to keep the virus. Even though there are only a small amount of Labs that have the skills and resources to do so there are still labs that have the skills to do this more labs in fact than the number of known countries to have stocks of the Smallpox Virus.
For these reasons I strongly believe that Smallpox is not needed for the use of medical research and therefore should be destroyed.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/empire_seapower/smallpox_01.shtml
http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110513/full/news.2011.288.html
Show lessBBC - History - British History in depth: Smallpox: Eradicating the Scourgebbc.co.uk
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