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THIRD WORLD NETWORK BIOSAFETY INFORMATION SERVICE 16 May 2005
RE: SMALLPOX AND WHO We wish to bring to your attention that a final decision, on whether experiments to genetically engineer the smallpox virus should be permitted, will take place this week at the World Health Assembly (WHA). 192 member states will discuss the issue on Wednesday (18 May 2005) (Item 1). A technical committee of the World Health Organsiation had previously given the go-ahead to begin such experiments. Some scientists (Item 2) have already voiced their concern about genetic engineering experiments on live smallpox virus, pointing out the danger that might occur should such viruses escape into the environment. A campaign was also launched by the Third World Network and Sunshine Project (see BIS dated 4 May 2005) to stop the WHA approving genetic engineering experiments on smallpox. They fear that the experiments would lead to a greater risk of accidental or deliberate release of the smallpox virus, and also point to the biosafety concerns related to such experiments. They also are concerned that if such experiments are approved it would set up a dangerous precedent for the genetic engineering of smallpox and other lethal pathogens. They call for the remaining stocks of the virus to be destroyed within a short time frame. Please urge your government and the WHO to reject the proposal that would permit the genetic engineering of smallpox. This can be done through a new website www.smallpoxbiosafety.org. With best wishes,
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.
From: "John Payne Woodall"
<woodall@compuland.com.br> To: Dr. Lee Jong-wook, Director
General From: John P. (Jack) Woodall,
PhD
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. ---
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