5 ms·

Should Smallpox Be Put To Death?

36 points by davi 15y ago

flipp 15y ago
Isn't there way more deadly and virulent stuff locked up in labs all over the world, like ebola and anthrax and VX? And we don't know what medical discoveries smallpox might yield decades down the road. Let's not destroy anything.
- nagrom 15y ago
  Ebola's not that deadly, because it kills people too quickly and the transmission process is difficult. It's easily quarantined and therefore deadly to individuals, but not to populations. Smallpox is almost the opposite - 66% of victims survive, but it spreads very easily. Anthrax is naturally-occurring, I think and also not that deadly in the scheme of things - it doesn't spread very easily from infected to non-infected without being weaponized.
  - corin_ 15y ago
    Your point is completely valid, but I have to point out how wonderful what you said sounds out of context. Ebola's not that deadly, because it kills people too quickly
  - djacobs 15y ago
    It's a shame that anthrax gets so much press, simply because of the (small) potential for weaponization. In spite of the fact that it doesn't easily spread between people. I've heard it's almost impossible to get approved to work with it, and when you do, every move you make is scrutinized.
- araneae 15y ago
  Yes, but those things exist in the wild, not just in the laboratory.
nagrom 15y ago
The question is unnecessarily emotional and anthropomorphizes smallpox - smallpox hates that. The question is really "There is a threat contained in labs in the US and Russia. Should we eliminate it, or hold onto it for future research and as a backup for vaccinations in case of other, undeclared stocks?" This breaks down into a whole set of questions, I guess. What is the probability of the virus escaping from the labs in Georgia and Siberia? What is the probability that there are undeclared stocks of the virus elsewhere? If the second is greater than the first, don't destroy the stocks because you may need them to recreate the vaccine. If the second is less than the first, by how much? And what is the consensus on risk appetite? How well can you ensure that the stocks really are destroyed if they are so ordered to be? This should tell you the best answer based on safety. The next set of questions relate to what can be learned from the current stocks. Is there an active research program? Is there a current list of things to learn, or are we just holding onto it 'in case'? Has there been a case that we were glad to have virus stocks that were previously held to be useless? If there is no obvious gain from holding onto the stock for research and the most significant threat from the virus is accidental release, then destroy the stocks. Otherwise, hold onto them - you can't recreate the stocks from nothing yet and you can always destroy them later. My gut tells me that we should hold onto them. I'm always loathe to throw opportunities away and that's really what these stocks represent.
- araneae 15y ago
  Agreed. I actually met a guy a week ago that's working on monkey pox- the next big pox threat. He told me that it's a growing problem and more people are getting infected by it in Africa- larger than what would be explained by the fact that people have stopped vaccinating for small pox. It suggests that monkey pox is an "up and coming" virus. So there's active research on pox, and it's silly to simple throw it away. The probability of the CDC's stock escaping is really very small, and let's face it, if we got rid of it once we could get rid of it again.
  - state_machine 15y ago
    It was probably easier to get rid the first time than it would be a second time given the increase in air travel and density in population centers that has occurred since then.
daimyoyo 15y ago
It should be preserved. The reason why is that you will never be able to say with 100% certainty that the disease is eradicated. So should someone get a hold of smallpox we'll be able to begin making a vaccine much sooner than we could of if we had to get a new sample.
- sanxiyn 15y ago
  Smallpox is a special case because we don't need smallpox to make smallpox vaccine. Smallpox vaccine is made from cowpox.
  - joelthelion 15y ago
    Is that really still the case today?
motters 15y ago
Probably it's a good idea to get rid of any remaining smallpox samples, but to retain its DNA/RNA sequence for possible future study. The genomes for viruses are typically not very large. If you printed out HIV it's maybe a couple of sheets of A4 paper.
- bhickey 15y ago
  Smallpox is a weird virus. A couple years ago I asked Tom Knight about the risk of someone ordering Smallpox oligos and making a viable virus. The problem is that it needs its own proteins to replicate. In other viruses it's sufficient to heat-shock the genome into the host. If we destroyed the viral stocks, it would be really hard to recover. Nasty freaking virus, but I don't think destroying it is smart. I bet you could bring the risk of an outbreak close to zero just by vaccinating everyone who works with the virus and everyone that they live or work with. I suspect that this is already standard operating procedure. Also, HIV is really tiny.
  - djacobs 15y ago
    I'd say the possibility of recreating smallpox from custom oligos hinges on this: Is RNA polymerase one of the proteins that smallpox requires from its own genes, or would someone be able to use stock bacterial polymerases to recreate its full suite of proteins?
giardini 15y ago
The Soviet Union had tons of biological weapons, including smallpox, before, during and after the implementation of the Biological Weapons Convention treaty. People who worked in those laboratories and the associated germ warfare production facilities sometimes accidentally carried product home unwittingly, with predictable consequences. Any hope for eradication is lost when somewhere, somehow, an as-yet-unopened bottle of bad stuff remains forgotten or hidden. And this is without considering bad intent. So keep samples where you can get them quickly.
pstack 15y ago
Earth could be invaded by aliens, someday, and find ourselves unable to overthrow them. We may find that they are not susceptible to any of our biological options, either. We may start wishing that we had something like small-pox to unleash on their home-world. Not something we'd want to do lightly, but if they assert themselves as our overlords, we may have no other choice.
- fiaz 15y ago
  Unlikely, but let's just play with this... For all we know, "they" engineered smallpox and are actually immune to it. It was sent to Earth as an engineered precursor to their arrival.
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
- Jach 15y ago
  Is this an argument that would actually convince you, were you otherwise undecided? I don't consider the probability of that scenario happening (let alone succeeding) high enough to even blink at, I'm sure accidental / malicious release are far more probable, even if they're also not very likely. "Just in case" can be a valid reason to keep something, but the question is always "Just in case of what?" I think nagrom asks the right questions for this. Edit: if you were being sarcastic, sorry, I'll go get an energy drink!
  - pstack 15y ago
    I don't see small pox as being unique. If we get rid of it, we need to get rid of everything else. I think we still keep ebola, for example. Frankly, there is simply no way of knowing the future (though I agree, there's no way of ensuring security of samples into the future, either). We worry about destruction of rainforests, because we have no idea what cures and solutions we might find in the undiscovered life within that could be lost forever. Likewise, we simply don't know what today's "horror of horrors" could find beneficial use, some day. In the event that we are invaded by aliens, I would count the success of unleashing small pox on them as being much greater than Jeff Goldblum infecting them with a virus from his macbook. :P When it comes down to it, though, I don't think there's a right answer. We just have to make an educated judgement call. Maybe the kind of judgement call where we respond to things like "but if we torture people, we can find terrorists!" with "but that's not the kind of people we are". Maybe we really do need to be the kind of people who say we're not willing to risk exposing innocent people to this for some future that we are only guessing about. Or maybe it's enough to simply map the genome and keep the data on it archived, while dumping the actual real deal.
gwern 15y ago
A much better essay arguing that smallpox be preserved: http://www.cdc.gov/eid/content/17/4/681.htm http://www.cdc.gov/eid/content/17/4/681.htm
sunstone 15y ago
Another way to look at this question is: If it didn't exist should we create it?

36 points by davi 15y ago

flipp 15y ago

Isn't there way more deadly and virulent stuff locked up in labs all over the world, like ebola and anthrax and VX? And we don't know what medical discoveries smallpox might yield decades down the road. Let's not destroy anything.

nagrom 15y ago
Ebola's not that deadly, because it kills people too quickly and the transmission process is difficult. It's easily quarantined and therefore deadly to individuals, but not to populations. Smallpox is almost the opposite - 66% of victims survive, but it spreads very easily. Anthrax is naturally-occurring, I think and also not that deadly in the scheme of things - it doesn't spread very easily from infected to non-infected without being weaponized.
- corin_ 15y ago
  Your point is completely valid, but I have to point out how wonderful what you said sounds out of context. Ebola's not that deadly, because it kills people too quickly
- djacobs 15y ago
  It's a shame that anthrax gets so much press, simply because of the (small) potential for weaponization. In spite of the fact that it doesn't easily spread between people. I've heard it's almost impossible to get approved to work with it, and when you do, every move you make is scrutinized.
araneae 15y ago
Yes, but those things exist in the wild, not just in the laboratory.

nagrom 15y ago

The question is unnecessarily emotional and anthropomorphizes smallpox - smallpox hates that. The question is really "There is a threat contained in labs in the US and Russia. Should we eliminate it, or hold onto it for future research and as a backup for vaccinations in case of other, undeclared stocks?" This breaks down into a whole set of questions, I guess. What is the probability of the virus escaping from the labs in Georgia and Siberia? What is the probability that there are undeclared stocks of the virus elsewhere? If the second is greater than the first, don't destroy the stocks because you may need them to recreate the vaccine. If the second is less than the first, by how much? And what is the consensus on risk appetite? How well can you ensure that the stocks really are destroyed if they are so ordered to be? This should tell you the best answer based on safety. The next set of questions relate to what can be learned from the current stocks. Is there an active research program? Is there a current list of things to learn, or are we just holding onto it 'in case'? Has there been a case that we were glad to have virus stocks that were previously held to be useless? If there is no obvious gain from holding onto the stock for research and the most significant threat from the virus is accidental release, then destroy the stocks. Otherwise, hold onto them - you can't recreate the stocks from nothing yet and you can always destroy them later. My gut tells me that we should hold onto them. I'm always loathe to throw opportunities away and that's really what these stocks represent.

araneae 15y ago
Agreed. I actually met a guy a week ago that's working on monkey pox- the next big pox threat. He told me that it's a growing problem and more people are getting infected by it in Africa- larger than what would be explained by the fact that people have stopped vaccinating for small pox. It suggests that monkey pox is an "up and coming" virus. So there's active research on pox, and it's silly to simple throw it away. The probability of the CDC's stock escaping is really very small, and let's face it, if we got rid of it once we could get rid of it again.
- state_machine 15y ago
  It was probably easier to get rid the first time than it would be a second time given the increase in air travel and density in population centers that has occurred since then.

daimyoyo 15y ago

It should be preserved. The reason why is that you will never be able to say with 100% certainty that the disease is eradicated. So should someone get a hold of smallpox we'll be able to begin making a vaccine much sooner than we could of if we had to get a new sample.

sanxiyn 15y ago
Smallpox is a special case because we don't need smallpox to make smallpox vaccine. Smallpox vaccine is made from cowpox.
- joelthelion 15y ago
  Is that really still the case today?

motters 15y ago

Probably it's a good idea to get rid of any remaining smallpox samples, but to retain its DNA/RNA sequence for possible future study. The genomes for viruses are typically not very large. If you printed out HIV it's maybe a couple of sheets of A4 paper.

bhickey 15y ago
Smallpox is a weird virus. A couple years ago I asked Tom Knight about the risk of someone ordering Smallpox oligos and making a viable virus. The problem is that it needs its own proteins to replicate. In other viruses it's sufficient to heat-shock the genome into the host. If we destroyed the viral stocks, it would be really hard to recover. Nasty freaking virus, but I don't think destroying it is smart. I bet you could bring the risk of an outbreak close to zero just by vaccinating everyone who works with the virus and everyone that they live or work with. I suspect that this is already standard operating procedure. Also, HIV is really tiny.
- djacobs 15y ago
  I'd say the possibility of recreating smallpox from custom oligos hinges on this: Is RNA polymerase one of the proteins that smallpox requires from its own genes, or would someone be able to use stock bacterial polymerases to recreate its full suite of proteins?

giardini 15y ago

The Soviet Union had tons of biological weapons, including smallpox, before, during and after the implementation of the Biological Weapons Convention treaty. People who worked in those laboratories and the associated germ warfare production facilities sometimes accidentally carried product home unwittingly, with predictable consequences. Any hope for eradication is lost when somewhere, somehow, an as-yet-unopened bottle of bad stuff remains forgotten or hidden. And this is without considering bad intent. So keep samples where you can get them quickly.

pstack 15y ago

Earth could be invaded by aliens, someday, and find ourselves unable to overthrow them. We may find that they are not susceptible to any of our biological options, either. We may start wishing that we had something like small-pox to unleash on their home-world. Not something we'd want to do lightly, but if they assert themselves as our overlords, we may have no other choice.

fiaz 15y ago
Unlikely, but let's just play with this... For all we know, "they" engineered smallpox and are actually immune to it. It was sent to Earth as an engineered precursor to their arrival.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
Jach 15y ago
Is this an argument that would actually convince you, were you otherwise undecided? I don't consider the probability of that scenario happening (let alone succeeding) high enough to even blink at, I'm sure accidental / malicious release are far more probable, even if they're also not very likely. "Just in case" can be a valid reason to keep something, but the question is always "Just in case of what?" I think nagrom asks the right questions for this. Edit: if you were being sarcastic, sorry, I'll go get an energy drink!
- pstack 15y ago
  I don't see small pox as being unique. If we get rid of it, we need to get rid of everything else. I think we still keep ebola, for example. Frankly, there is simply no way of knowing the future (though I agree, there's no way of ensuring security of samples into the future, either). We worry about destruction of rainforests, because we have no idea what cures and solutions we might find in the undiscovered life within that could be lost forever. Likewise, we simply don't know what today's "horror of horrors" could find beneficial use, some day. In the event that we are invaded by aliens, I would count the success of unleashing small pox on them as being much greater than Jeff Goldblum infecting them with a virus from his macbook. :P When it comes down to it, though, I don't think there's a right answer. We just have to make an educated judgement call. Maybe the kind of judgement call where we respond to things like "but if we torture people, we can find terrorists!" with "but that's not the kind of people we are". Maybe we really do need to be the kind of people who say we're not willing to risk exposing innocent people to this for some future that we are only guessing about. Or maybe it's enough to simply map the genome and keep the data on it archived, while dumping the actual real deal.

gwern 15y ago

A much better essay arguing that smallpox be preserved: http://www.cdc.gov/eid/content/17/4/681.htm http://www.cdc.gov/eid/content/17/4/681.htm

sunstone 15y ago

Another way to look at this question is: If it didn't exist should we create it?