Smallpox: W.H.O. and HHS agree to keep it in reserve

U.S. health secretary Kathleen Sebelius has announced the World Health Organization (WHO) assembly decision not to recommend the destruction of the last known smallpox virus stockpiles — located in Russia and the U.S. CDC in Atlanta — for at least another five years. As ACSH has documented in multiple publications, including A Citizen's Guide to Terrorism Preparedness and Response and ANTHRAX: What You Need to Know, the potential to weaponize highly infectious and lethal diseases by releasing them as a powder or aerosol has driven both public health and national security concerns over whether to maintain the smallpox reserves or destroy them. The experts convened by the WHO deliberated on this question: Is it wiser to continue terrorism preparedness research on the actual virus, or to destroy the virus and thus prevent an accidental or intentional release?

Over the centuries, smallpox killed about one-third of the people it infected, but thanks to immunization and devoted public health programs worldwide, it was finally eradicated from the environment in 1980, thanks in large part to the leadership of former ACSH trustee D.A. Henderson. ACSH’s Dr. Elizabeth Whelan agrees with Secretary Sebelius and the WHO policy: “I believe the smallpox repositories should be maintained. It may be easier to access the virus in the event of an emergency such as a bioterrorism attack than by reconstructing the virus from the known smallpox genomes. Plus, we could never know for sure if Russia would actually destroy all of its supplies — and what if there are other smallpox stockpiles we don’t know about?”