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US scientists push for go-ahead to genetically modify smallpox virus
Sarah Boseley and Julian Borger in Washington Monday, May 16, 2005 The
Guardian http://www.guardian.co.uk/medicine/story/0,11381,1484797,00.html
US scientists are awaiting World Health Assembly approval to begin
experiments to genetically modify the smallpox virus, one of the most
lethal organisms the planet has known.
Researchers have already been given the go-ahead by a technical committee
of the World Health Organisation, which accepts the argument that the
research could bring new vaccines and treatments for smallpox closer.
This week the debate will pass for a final decision to the floor of the
full assembly of the WHO, whose representatives from 192 member states
begin a 10-day annual meeting in Geneva today.
Campaigners, backed by some scientists, have launched a late attempt to
stop the assembly approving GM experiments on smallpox. They fear that
the experiments would make the use of smallpox in bioterrorism more
likely, and point to the fact that the assembly itself agreed 11 years
ago to destroy all stocks of the virus.
One of the relaxations of the rules would allow small pieces of the virus'
DNA to be distributed to laboratories around the world. Opponents say
there is a serious risk that the pieces could be used in an artificial
reconstruction of the virus, to be used in biological warfare.
Donald Henderson, of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, United States,
former director of the WHO's global smallpox eradication programme, says
permitting the proposed experiments in an increased number of
laboratories in today's world is unwise.
"The problem is that we have got a lot of people with a lot more talent
working in biological laboratories around the world and a lot of them are
very well-trained and the potential for mischief here is much greater," he
said.
Smallpox was eradicated as a disease in 1977. Since then stocks of the
virus have been permitted to remain in just two secure laboratories - the
US government's Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta and the Institute
for Viral Preparations in Moscow. Even so, they have not always been
strictly under the control of the WHO. Russia in 1996 admitted that it
had, without WHO permission, moved its stocks to Novosibirsk in Siberia.
The original date for destruction of all stocks was 1999, but both Russia
and the US dragged their feet. The WHO then set up the Variola (smallpox)
Advisory Committee to give the WHO scientific advice on what should and
should not be permitted. The committee, known as VAC, has gradually
shifted the position away from destruction. At its last meeting, in
November, the committee recommended that US proposals for further
experimentation on the live virus, including genetic modification, should
be allowed.
Because of the sensitivity of the issue, the WHO's director general, Lee
Jong-wook, reviewed the proposals. He rejected the recommendation to
allow insertion of smallpox genes into related viruses, such as monkeypox
and cowpox, but allowed four other experiments, including genetic
modification, to go before today's full assembly for final approval.
The campaign for the total eradication of the virus is led by the Third
World Network and the US-based Sunshine Project, who object that the
advisory committee is unbalanced. Nearly two-thirds of those attending
are from the US and Europe, with a further 14% from Russia. It is also,
they say on their campaign website, "weighted towards scientists with a
personal interest in conducting smallpox research".
Edward Hammond, director of the Sunshine Project, said: "The set of
recommendations remains substantially unreviewed by experts in public
health, safety of genetically modified organisms and preparedness for
deliberate outbreaks of disease."
Scientists are divided over the benefits to be gained from further
experiments. Anne Solomon, a biotechnology expert at the Centre for
Strategic and International Studies, said knowledge about the genetic
modification of viruses was so widespread that the US should start
preparing counter-measures, particularly as there is no absolute
certainty smallpox virus stocks will remain confined to the US and
Russia.
"That capability is out there," Ms Solomon said. Professor Henderson,
however, believes that even if there are illegal stocks somewhere, the
world would be safer if the US and Russia destroyed what they have, and
the UN made it a crime against humanity for any person, laboratory or
country to keep the virus.
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Item 2
From: "John Payne Woodall"
To: leej@who.int
Subject: Smallpox
Date: Sun, 24 Apr 2005 22:49:11 -0300
To: Dr. Lee Jong-wook, Director General
WHO
1211 Geneva 27
Switzerland
From: John P. (Jack) Woodall, PhD
for the Scientists Working Group on Biological and Chemical Weapons,
Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, Washington DC.
Current address:
Director, Nucleus for the Investigation of Emerging Infectious Diseases,
Institute for Medical Biochemistry, Center for Health Sciences,
Federal University of Rio de Janeiro,
Rio de Janeiro - RJ, Brazil
Dear Dr Lee:
Smallpox: to be or not to be?
I write as a virologist who has worked in the field for more than 40 years,
a former staff member of CDC for 13 years and of WHO for a similar period,
and the leader of the WHO delegation to the 3rd Review Conference of the
Biological Weapons Convention. The question of whether smallpox virus
should be exterminated transcends considerations of what we might eventually
learn about virulence and disease from further study of the virus, and
enters the realm of humanity's responsibility to future generations.
However great the theoretical interest of studying smallpox virus with the
latest molecular techniques, the risk of an escape is unacceptably high.
Recent laboratory accidents have shown that however secure the laboratory
facilities, laboratory workers have become infected with SARS virus and
tularemia bacteria, and in fact the last recorded outbreak of smallpox began
with a laboratory infection in England. It is true that undeclared smallpox
strains may exist in several laboratories around the world, but that is not
a reason to keep the declared stocks in the USA and Russia. This is like
saying that because your neighbor might conceivably be storing inflammable
liquids in his garage, you are going to do the same just in case you might
need them in future, oblivious to the risk to your own children and
property.
It is important to remember that the highly effective smallpox vaccine is
not made using smallpox virus, but a related virus called vaccinia. As long
as reserves of this vaccine are maintained, there will be a first line of
defense to contain an accidental or deliberate laboratory escape. If
smallpox does reappear in the future, it would be well that neither the USA
nor Russia could be blamed for maintaining stocks of the virus and thus
endangering the health of future generations. The scourge of smallpox was
one of the "slings and arrows of outrageous fortune", and we should grasp
the opportunity to end it, not like Shakespeare's Prince of Denmark by
contemplating suicide, but by exterminating it once and for all. There
should be no ethical imperative that the human race must risk its own
decimation in order to allow another form of life to survive. Surely
humankind was given self-awareness in order to help ensure its own survival,
not to play Russian roulette with it.
---
Jack Woodall, PhD
for the Scientists Working Group on Biological and Chemical Weapons,
Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, Washington DC.
---
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