TUESDAY NOVEMBER 06 2001 World must vaccinate against smallpox, say Russian scientists FROM ROLAND WATSON IN WASHINGTON FORMER Soviet germ warfare scientists called for the return of worldwide smallpox vaccination yesterday, warning that the dangers of terrorists getting their hands on the lethal virus was too great. Underpaid Russian researchers could be bought by rogue powers or wealthy terrorist organisations into passing on the virus, they said, spreading a highly contagious disease that was eradicated 20 years ago.

Lev Sandakhchiyev, director of Russia’s Vektor Institute, which holds one of the world’s two official samples of smallpox, said: “It is a very dangerous weapon in the hands of terrorists and all you need is a sick fanatic to get to a populated place. The world health system is completely unprepared for this.”

Fears of a smallpox outbreak, until recently confined to the fringes of scientific debate, have been fuelled by the anthrax scare unfolding in the United States. A post office in the Pentagon was sealed off yesterday after traces of anthrax were found in two mailboxes, adding the military’s headquarters to the White House, Congress and Supreme Court as pillars of the Washington establishment brushed by the outbreak. Emergency medical teams in the US have already started receiving smallpox inoculations.

When smallpox was eradicated in 1981, a debate was held about whether to destroy all traces of it, or to retain some to use for inoculations should it re-emerge. Apart from the Vektor laboratory in Siberia, the other sample is held at the Centres for Disease Control in Atlanta.

Mr Sandakhchiyev said that the institute’s germ warfare agents were protected, but he added that some scientists earned $100 (£68.50) a month and could be tempted financially by outsiders looking to acquire germ warfare expertise.

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/0,,2001380016-2001383881,00.html

-- Martin Thompson (mthom1927@aol.com), November 05, 2001

Answers

What infuriated me the most, was the public announcement, that Canada and the U.S. has joined hands to create a new and improved small pox vaccination (keep a close ear, you with your dog, nice dog) and you can make quotes, an apostrophe appear, or disappear, at whilm. The original vaccine worked quite well enough. So why are the current fools, thinking they have a new leg up on the likes of Pasteur, and other Genisus? Better go back to the drawing board. And by the way, Anthrax in a powder form, is not white, it is a grayish, brown form. But for the while, some folks are behaving in a most asinine manner. I Have to wonde, at this board, which will not allow me to correct my mispellings, maybe it is for a language, for someone else. Take Heart.

-- My Story (and I am@sticking.com), November 05, 2001.

My understanding is that the old vaccination carried serious side effects or risks. They are working on a safer one.

-- (citygirl@idirect.com), November 05, 2001.

I went for the vaccination nearly 70 years ago. I'll go for it again.

-- Sparky (case@webtown.com), November 05, 2001.