Thursday, May 30, 2013

The Demon In The Freezer: Should Smallpox Be Destroyed?

           A little more than halfway through the book, the author Richard Preston introduces the debate over whether or not smallpox should be destroyed.  Smallpox only legally exists in two places in the world, one in America and one in Russia.  In these high security containment facilities, the many different smallpox strains are kept in freezers, where they cannot escape and infect people.  The containers are hidden, moved constantly, and put under high security.  As I said in my last post, smallpox is the most dangerous virus known to man; it spreads quickly, kills many, and there is no cure.  A leak of the smallpox virus kept in these freezers could be disastrous to the human race.  Even though smallpox is SUPPOSED to be in only two places, it's common knowledge that it's not.  Other countries have it, terrorist groups have it, even Russia, who has legal possession over the virus, has used it in illegal ways.  The argument posed in the book was whether or not the USA and Russia should set a good example and destroy their supplies of smallpox, in the hope that others that possess the virus will destroy it also for the good of humanity.
          There are two "obvious" answers: yes, smallpox should be destroyed because it could seriously hurt us, and no, smallpox should not be destroyed because it could seriously hurt us.  Essentially, the two sides of the argument pose different solutions with the same reasoning behind them.  People like D.A Henderson, who led the eradication of smallpox, believe that smallpox must be destroyed completely.  He says on page 128, "'What we need to do is create a climate where smallpox is considered too morally reprehensible to be used as a weapon.  It would make the possession of smallpox in a laboratory a crime against humanity."  He believed, as many others do, that destroying the legal stocks of smallpox would convince the world to destroy ALL stocks.  He favored the idea of leading by example, and it's easy to see where he is coming from considering his background.  He traveled the whole world, saw thousands of people infected with smallpox, even die of smallpox, and worked tirelessly for fourteen years to get rid of it.  It's no surprise he wanted the virus sent where it could never hurt anyone again.  And yet the question lingered, enough to postpone the destruction of smallpox several times: what could we gain from keeping this disease around?  D.A. Henderson would say that "there was no good scientific justification for research into real variola [smallpox]" (page 130).  He thought the vaccine used in the eradication was good enough to protect people against the virus, and that other research would just be costly and useless.
          But guess what.  This disease is unpredictable; sudden changes can occur that can totally redefine the species and our supposed protection against it.  In 2000, Australian scientists tried to decrease a population of mice by infecting them with genetically engineered mousepox to make them sterile, discontinuing reproduction.  The mousepox virus was altered by inserting a gene from the mice; it was supposed to make them sterile, but instead, it wiped out almost all of the mice population.  The scariest part?  Even the mice that had been vaccinated against the original mousepox virus died.  What does this prove, you ask?  It proves that our vaccination isn't good enough.  Mousepox is very similar to smallpox.  If mousepox can be engineered to infect even vaccinated mice, the same could be done to the smallpox virus.  So?  So, our enemies could create a strain of smallpox to which we are left with ABSOLUTELY NO PROTECTION AGAINST.  Opposers of smallpox destruction say that we need this virus around to be experimented with.  We NEED to keep it around to further develop new protection, to understand how the virus works, to test, to explore, to possibly even find a cure one day for this disease.
           I couldn't agree more.  I know the risks of keeping smallpox around.  It's dangerous.  But it's even more dangerous to leave ourselves without any hope of retaliation against possible bio-warfare attacks.  Once terrorist groups hear that we have gotten rid of our smallpox, that we have no way of testing for new vaccinations or cures to the genetically engineered smallpox they are perfectly capable of producing, what will stop them from dropping the virus on us?  The vaccination we have isn't good enough.  Not for what today's science is capable of producing.  We need to keep this virus around because it's the only hope we have of protecting ourselves against smallpox.  And it's not just smallpox; like I said in my last post, other pox viruses are starting to make species jumps.  In a few decades, we could be victims of an onset of monkeypox or cowpox.  These diseases are similar to smallpox, and we could be able to develop protection against these viruses much faster with the advances we've already made with smallpox.  If, 50 years from now, monkeypox is destroying the human race, what are we supposed to do if we've destroyed smallpox?  Sit around and wait until we've collected enough information that we could have already had before we don't have to fear these viruses anymore?  Besides that, as stated in an argument against destroying smallpox on page 128, isn't it wrong to partake in the purposeful extinction of a species?  We're tampering with things we shouldn't be; maybe variola is important to the process of evolution.  The human race is growing exponentially- what if smallpox is evolution's way of controlling our increase?  We see it all the time in other species; outside forces limit the growth of a species to maintain balance.  I know it's in OUR best interest to get rid of our species' worst enemy, but we're messing with the balance.
           To sum it up, we need to keep smallpox around.  It can help us so much to protect ourselves and make advances in understanding the disease.  Even in the name of pure scientific interest, we must keep it around to advance our knowledge.  Plus, destroying our smallpox stocks would make us huge targets for terrorist groups, since we could not counter any bio-terrorism attacks with vaccinations.  Just because we get rid of our smallpox does not mean by any means that our enemies will; if anything, it will only encourage them to continue to toy with the virus, because they know we would be utterly defenseless.  And finally, it just isn't right to destroy a whole species; by doing so, we are playing God (pardon the expression) and upsetting the fine tuned balance of nature.  The question is not whether or not smallpox should be destroyed; it is whether or not we as humans even have the right to argue this.

 D.A. Henderson, supporter of the destruction of smallpox



Peter Jahrling, a key opposer of the destruction of smallpox

8 comments:

Unknown said...

I agree with you on some points: from what I read, I think it should be kept around because of the possibility of research and the threat of the use of smallpox against others. It seems like there's no way to ever really destroy it because we don't have a way of destroying all of it. On the other hand, I think the idea that we are going against a balance would cause you to be for destroying the virus, because if the virus is used in research where we are trying to figure out how to defend ourselves against it, we're messing with something. As you said, viruses mutate a lot and there are others that are extremely deadly. I think that if you want things to be in a natural order you wouldn't need to research because having a vaccine would be changing something. We're always changing the way things are to improve things. There's a bunch of research done to change the way things work or to improve on them, and I think if it's possible to stop something from wiping out populations we should. I know where you're coming from with the overpopulation thing, but I don't think we should let things happen if possible. At the same time though, we have no way of knowing what will change because of any of our intervention, so I know what you mean. No matter what we do, there could be a fallout. I really liked your post, it was really thought provoking:P

Jenette Dziezynski said...

Jess- Very insightful comment. I applaud you on your excellently worded response.
I actually thought about what you said about altering nature by experimenting and creating vaccines, and you're right in a sense. We ARE altering nature by creating vaccines, but isn't that in a less severe than wiping out a whole species? Purposeful extinction of smallpox seems a little too harsh. I agree with you that the world is changing rapidly largely due to our influence, and I totally get where you're coming from about doing whatever we can to help our species, because I guess in a way, that represents survival of the fittest; we have the power to overcome our obstacles, why not use it? And trust me, I definitely don't want to let smallpox out to attack the human race. What I was trying to get at was that it is not in our place to destroy a species all on our own for our own selfish reasons. I know it would help us in the case of smallpox, but even with other species, we have no idea the reprecussions purposeful extinction could have on the world. I was trying to show not only how we play God with smallpox, but with other things- I really believe that while we should be doing things to help our chances of survival, we don't always understand the effect our selfishness can have.
In other words, I'm glad you agree with me on keeping smallpox around. I didn't expect to feel so strongly about this issue, and while reading the debate in the book, I'll admit I wasn't very moved one way or another. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I very strongly oppose the destruction of our supply of smallpox. By the way, SMALLPOX SPECIES!!!

Amanda said...

Jenette,
I definitely believe that smallpox should be destroyed. If the virus gets in the wrong hands then it could ignite biological warfare. I am confused about the argument for not destroying small pox. If the strain is unpredictable to mutating into another form, and our vaccines won't work any ways, how would having the old small pox help? I think the next type of warfare will utilize biological weapons, so WE NEED TO DESTROY THEM. I also don't think that we need to keep it around as a defense for if other nations/organizations use it against us. We have an abundance of scientists in this country that most likely have the skill set to make and release another virus elsewhere. Jenette, I know my response isn't as excellently worded, but you're response would be appreciated. Answer the question I asked you!!

Nick Delehanty said...

Jenette, I agree wholeheartedly with your position that smallpox should not be destroyed. I think Amanda's proposal to have smallpox be destroyed before it "gets in the wrong hands" is admirable but just not possible in the current political climate. The virus already is in the wrong hands; the United States and Russia are not known for their close and amiable relationship. Additionally, deterioration of political and social stability in Russia since the collapse of the USSR is not conducive to effective government work and that could have potentially compromised the security and containment of the virus. It could even be possible that other nations or groups secretly have the virus. If the United States were to destroy its stock of smallpox, not only would we be totally unprepared in case of a biological attack, but we would drastically alter the balance of power on the international stage. Hostile states and groups would recognize the United States would be totally vulnerable to smallpox and use the threat of an attack as a bargaining chip against us. Hopefully one day the international community will be peaceful enough so that all stores of biological weapons can be disposed of, but unfortunately today is not that day.

Jenette Dziezynski said...

Amanda- Well aren't we demanding?
As Nick said, smallpox is already in the wrong hands and has been for years. In the beginning of the book, the author lists several countries that "either have clandestine stocks of smallpox or are trying actively to get the virus" (page 24). The list includes Russia at the top, India, Pakistan, China, Israel, Iraq, North Korea, Iran, the former Yugoslavia, Cuba, Taiwan, and France, as well as Al Qaeda and Aum Shinrikyo, a Japanese terrorist group. As you can see, smallpox is already possessed by our enemies. Destroying it for protection would be pointless, since, as Nick said, we would make ourselves seem less powerful and more vulnerable, which would only make us a target for attacks. To address your claim that we have enough scientists to think of new vaccinations without the old stocks of smallpox, how much longer would it take to make these vaccines if we destroyed all of the knowledge and samples of smallpox that we already have? I understand that smallpox can mutate and the strains that could be used as biological weapons would be much different than what we have now, but isn't it better to have some base knowledge and samples to experiment on than to have to start over? It may take us a while to acquire and decode the new smallpox strain, especially if we have no basis to see where the mutations occured or how it is similar to the original stocks.
Now, to answer your real question as to what we could use the old stocks for, it could be used for a lot; like I said, it may be a good basis for a starting point if we ever need to creat a new vaccination. Researching smallpox could help us develop antiviral drugs that could be useful in the future; even if they aren't specified to future strains of the virus, perhaps they would only require a bit of tweaking to be made useful. Again, it all goes back to having an adequate starting point and background knowledge of the disease. And research into smallpox could help us immensly in better understanding the virus should it ever strike again. Even with mutations, "new" smallpox strains are bound to share similarities with our existing stocks, and may effect the body in the same way as the old strains. The book describes an experiment that Peter Jahrling was carrying out, trying to infect monkeys with smallpox; if this succeeded, we would be able to legally experiment on monkeys (rather than people) to test the effect of smallpox, which would be HUGE in seeing how the virus targets the body- what is effected first, where does the virus concentrate, how does it progress throughout the body to destroy it? All of these questions are worth answering to protect ourselves against future attacks. I haven't read far enough into the book to see what the results of the experiment were, but from what I can tell by scanning ahead, Jahrling was able to successfully infect the monkeys with smallpox and many of them died from the virus and showed similar symptoms as humans. This proves that, contrary to prior belief, smallpox doesn't just infect humans, but other species as well. It also provides a suitable test species to experiment on with smallpox (I'm not getting into the ethics of animal testing), so that future research will be both possible and helpful. I hope that this answers your question! Let me know if you have any more!
Nick- I'm glad you agree, and I thought you posed an interesting idea in saying that it is not only the scientific and moral issues surrounding this debate, but the political conditions we are surrounded by. I agree that if conditions were different and people were able to get along on a global scale, the complete and total eradication of smallpox may be permissable, but as for now, our environment is not stable enough to take that kind of leap of faith.
Thanks both of you for your comments and ideas!

Sabina said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Sabina said...

I agree that we should keep small pox around simply because we shouldn't mess with nature. I believe everything in nature has a purpose, even if we don't understand what it is yet. Also it is scary how you mentioned that mousepox infected even the mice that were vaccinated against it. This means that we can be vaccinated against any disease and still get it. The concept of biological warfare is frightening. I hope that it never happens, but I'm sure it will even though I would like to believe it wont happen. Think about how defenseless we would be if a new strain of virus afflicted us during a time of war. I see a war against "bioterrorism" being hyped up in the future.

Jenette Dziezynski said...

Sabina-
I'm with you on the idea of not messing with nature. It really is a scary concept. I think you're right in saying there will be a war on bioterrorism in the future- right now I don't think anyone really realizes to the full extent how awful that would be, but I'm sure they will in a few years when bioterrorism becomes really promoted by enemy countries. I guess we can only hope that everyone will be smart enough to realize that bioterrorism will hurt the whole human race, not just our enemies.