> but there was a scandal not too long ago where anyone who bothers to fill out paperwork could order anthrax and smallpox for research purposes from a lab. Th

> but there was a scandal not too long ago where anyone who bothers to fill out paperwork could order anthrax and smallpox for research purposes from a lab. There's lots of problems in this post. But the idea that anyone could "order smallpox" is totally false. A journalist synthesized 1 gene from smallpox which is the scandal you were referring to. 1 gene != smallpox.