Young Writers Society

Small Pox is an infectious human disease cause by Variola sp. It causes blisters all over the body which are fluid-filled with a mortality rate of 30%-35%.

Edward Jenner, the first person to create a vaccine, created a vaccine for this. Your parents might have a fat circle/mark on their arm, which is a result of this vaccination.

Now, small pox has been eradicated.

However, there are two stocks existing in Atlanta, USA and Koltsovo, Russia.

Question : Should the two samples be destroyed?


YES:
- May break out to cause epidemic
-Potent biowarfare weapon

NO:
-Scientific research for future attack
-not all of them have been studied, not all of them have been sequenced. And so there is an incredibly rich repository of information about virus virulence, pathogenesis, evolution, etc, that has not been tapped.
-No one in the recent years have been vaccinated.

The WHO has held meetings on this. The issue has once again been postponed to 2014.

You thoughts and comments?

Destroy Destroy Destroy!! Terrorists will go out of their way to attack anything and this is a possible threat. In May, suspected terrorists where arrested at a nuclear power plant (non-intelligence based). With all the attention on terrorists and suspicious people going to nuclear plants, they'll neglect this.

When did they stop vaccinating against small pox? Where was smallpox prevalent?