Campaign launched to stop smallpox experiments
Vermont Guardian, April 8, 2005

GENEVA — When the World Health Assembly, the decision-making body for the World Health Organization, meets in Geneva beginning on May 16, a controversial proposal that would permit the genetic engineering of smallpox will be hotly debated.
An international alliance of non-governmental organizations wants the WHO to reject the idea and instead ensure that all remaining stocks of the virus are destroyed within two years.
Led by Third World Network and The Sunshine Project, the NGOs have launched a website, www.smallpoxbiosafety.org, urging people to write to the WHO Director General and their government’s representatives to the assembly.
The proposal to genetically engineer smallpox would permit smallpox genes to be inserted into related pox viruses and the unlimited distribution of small segments of smallpox DNA. The opposing groups argue that this poses public health, biosafety, and biological weapons risks.
An article on the website, “The Genetic Engineering of Smallpox: WHO’s Retreat from the Eradication of Smallpox Virus and Why it Should be Stopped,” outlines the political process that led to the proposal, the risks, and why it should be rejected.
The NGOs, which hope to spur widespread public rejection of the proposal, recommend that a firm date within two years should be established for the destruction of all remaining stocks of smallpox virus.
Although smallpox was eradicated in 1977, the job was never finished. The United States and Russia still retain stocks of smallpox virus (Variola major), which is a potent biological weapons agent.
In 1999, the remaining stocks were slated for destruction, but both countries objected to a WHO resolution calling on them to destroy the virus. Third World Network charged that the United States has accelerated smallpox research since then.