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> Although the World Health Organization declared smallpox, a contagious and sometimes fatal infectious disease, eradicated in 1980, there have been longstandin

• riffic 5y ago
  there's no need for that when samples of the virus itself are still retained by two laboratories: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smallpox_virus_retention_debate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smallpox_virus_retention_debat...
  • bpodgursky 5y ago
    There are a lot more people who will soon have access to genome fabrication technology (there are already companies that do this as a service) than can break into a BSL4+ laboratory and steal one of the few remaining smallpox samples.
    • 14 5y ago
      Would smallpox survive in a microscope slide? I remember my late grandpa had a microscope slide labeled smallpox in his basement. He was an old time doctor and had all sorts of neat things down there after he died. I don’t remember what happened but think the slide is still sitting in a storage shed or something. Always been curious about the risk of having such a slide.
      • bpodgursky 5y ago
        Not a (real) scientist, but I think unlikely. The concern I see from scientists are bodies buried in permafrost, but ice preserves in a way basements don't.
      • LeifCarrotson 5y ago
        No, if the slide was prepared for storage the sample would have been embedded in a preservative with the cover glass glued down around the perimeter. The sample would likely be mixed with a mixture of alcohol, glycerin, and acetic acid known as AGA to prevent decomposition, this would kill any bacteria or viruses in the sample. I have a microscope from my uncle, also a doctor, which came with a ton of slides he prepared. If you don't know someone who had to build that collection of their own specimens in med school, you can get all kinds of prepared slides commercially: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0836SH17X https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0836SH17X > Human Cell Mucus Membrane Smear 72 Dense Connective Tissue Section 73 Ciliated Epithelium Section 74 Oesophagus T.S. 75 Stomach Section 76 Small Intestine Section 77 Lung sec 78 Liver Section 79 Kidney Section 80 Spleen Section 81 Pancreas Section 82 Urinary Bladder Section 83 Ureter C.S. 84 Ovary Section 85 Testis Section 86 Oviduct T.S. 87 Uterus Sec. 88 Tongue L.S. 89 Trachea C.S. 90 Epididymis sec. 91 Large vein sec. 92 Thymus Sec. 93 Human Blood Smear 94 Motor Nerve W.M. 95 Spinal Cord C.S. 96 Human Hair W.M. 97 Artery and Vein C.S. 98 Arteriole C.S. 99 Human Skin Sweat Gland Section 100 Skin of Human(show hair follicle) Sec.
        • parsecs 5y ago
          How the hell can they get all these bits of humans for so cheap? As much as I love high value chinese stuff on amazon this one sorta creeps me out
          • rolleiflex 5y ago
            You might like to hear about Henrietta Lacks, arguably the first immortal human being, now called HeLa. Her living cells are one of the most widely distributed living human tissue available, still alive, still replicating because they have activated telomerase, which means the cells are not 'aging' in the way normal human cells do. I think it's about $400 for about a vial's size of tissue.
          • LeifCarrotson 5y ago
            I do notice that only the mucus membrane, blood, hair, sweat gland, and hair follicle slides specifically say they're from a human, the others could be from a pig or any other large mammal and it would be very hard to tell the difference. Were I buying an assortment of electronics and a few items were labeled with a brand name and others were unlabeled, I'd assume the unlabeled ones were generic. Also, one cadaver can generate an awful lot of slides. Each slide requires on the order of a microliter (1/1000 of a milliliter) of material, and a good microtome can cut samples with a thickness of a few micrometers (1/1000 millimeters). Essentially all medical students go through an anatomy class involving the dissection of a cadaver, and Google says there are 3.8 million doctors in China, so even with a generous assumption of 20 students per cadaver and a static field (it's not) with 50-year careers, that's still several thousand cadavers per year.
      • bluedevil2k 5y ago
        Take this comment with a grain of salt, but there was an episode of House where his patient dug up some old treasure chest and it had a bottle with smallpox sores and they got infected. I remember him saying the virus can lay dormant for a long time. I’d make a phone call or two and get that safely dealt with.
        • maj0rhn 5y ago
          The Lancet had a series of articles in the early 1980s about smallpox in Egyptian mummies, and the risk to Egyptologists. As far as I remember, at least some mummy bodies were preserved in cool, non-dry surroundings which are the best conditions for maintaining viability of the virus. There were also letters about people finding envelopes in old desks containing saved smallpox scabs, and there was concern about the viability of organisms in those. Bottom line: no one really knows. (Always a good answer in medicine.)
      • gus_massa 5y ago
        Somewhat related: From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variolation#Decline https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variolation#Decline > Although variolation eventually declined or was banned in some countries, it was still practiced in others. "Buying the smallpox" was still practiced in Sudan until the late nineteenth century. However, variolation survived longer elsewhere. During the World Health Organization's Smallpox Eradication Campaign, vaccination teams came across variolators in remote areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan and their samples were confiscated. In the early stages of the campaign, live virus was detected in some, but as the campaign progressed variolators could not replenish their stocks, and although virus particles were detected in some samples, very few contained live virus. Our knowledge about the survival of smallpox virus suggests that passage of time makes it extremely unlikely that any infectious samples have survived.
      • eganist 5y ago
        > Would smallpox survive in a microscope slide? I remember my late grandpa had a microscope slide labeled smallpox in his basement. He was an old time doctor and had all sorts of neat things down there after he died. I don’t remember what happened but think the slide is still sitting in a storage shed or something. Always been curious about the risk of having such a slide. Not sure, but I'd hazard that someone driven enough to break into one of the few remaining facilities holding live stock of smallpox would also probably be willing to infect themselves with it so as not to worry about preserving it.
      • HWR_14 5y ago
        Based on my minimal understanding, viruses are too small to be seen under an optical microscope regardless of lens quality. Interesting imaging is done with an electron microscope. I would therefore guess that slide is focusing on tissue damaged by smallpox, not of the virus itself. It is therefore likely that the virus was rendered inert as a result of the same processes that were used to preserve the sample.
    • est31 5y ago
      FTR if you try to order that even remotely looks like a known human virus from these companies, they will reject your order. But yes, the more accessible this technology becomes, the greater the danger.
    • arbitrage 5y ago
      The implication when noting that two laboratories retained samples of smallpox is that both the USA and the USSR (now russia) have almost certainly been researching bioweapon applications and defenses on this virus for forty+ years, now. Not that a third-party is going to steal the virus. During the cold war, this was a polite way of saying "we know you have this capability, and guess what, so do we." This announcement of a drug to treat smallpox is probably more about the reheating of the US/USSR cold-war again, than it is about a mission-impossible style caper with someone stealing a virus everyone already knows everything about.
      • nradov 5y ago
        Defenses perhaps, but I highly doubt that either country is still researching bioweapon applications. What's the point? They have nuclear and (latent) chemical weapons which are far more militarily effective and less likely to cause "friendly fire" incidents.