Jen Christensen of CNN reports the alarming news that CDC: Smallpox found in NIH storage room is alive.
(CNN) -- At least two of the vials employees at the National Institutes of Health found in an unused storage room earlier this month contain viable samples of the deadly smallpox virus, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Friday.
Employees found six forgotten vials when they were preparing to move a lab from the Food and Drug Administration's Bethesda, Maryland, campus to a different location. The laboratory had been used by the NIH but was transferred to the FDA in 1972.
When the scientists found the vials, they immediately put them in a containment lab and on July 1 notified the branch of the government that deals with toxic substances, called the Division of Select Agents and Toxins. ... Additional test results showed "evidence of growth" in samples from two of the vials, suggesting that the smallpox virus is alive. ...
Frieden says that the NIH is currently scouring their buildings to make sure there are no other surprises left in unused storerooms. He says the problem in this case is not in the creation of the vials; the discovery points to a "problem in inventory control."
What? Frieden wants to clarify that he sees no problem in creating such vials of dangerous viruses, and seems to "instruct" people that the proper way for us to think about this incident is that it is was just an "inventory control problem." Is that his proper role?
Others might suggest that as long as we see recurring examples of "inventory control problems" like this, and such as the potential exposure of more than 80 scientists to anthrax a few weeks ago, concern about creating such potential risks are proven to valid, and should be raised to the highest level of public debate. In 1986, when the WHO urged that the last samples of small pox be destroyed to reduce the possible accidental release, they were apparently overruled by the military of Russia and the U.S. It seems as if now would be a good time to revisit this debate.
Perhaps, the newspapers are misrepresenting his remarks. I hope so, because otherwise just the expression of an attitude like this, from someone with such responsibilities, could raise even more concerns. Freidan should not see his role to act as an apologist for the military establishment's position, but rather his role should be to say, "that as long as "society" decides to keep such dangerous pathogens against the advice of the WHO, the CDC will do its best to help keep them safely contained, and that this example shows that these samples were not handled in the proper manner. How many more such cases can we expect? The CDC is investigating and let the public know as soon as more data is available." A state of this nature would seem more appropriate, more reassuring, and more indicative of a CDC spokesman who understand the charter and proper role of the CDC.
Serious debate is occurring in the scientific, and military communities about the complicated balance of pros and cons for continuing to store such dangerous samples.
For example, there are only supposed to be two samples of smallpox still in existence, one held in a top security lab by the Russian military, and the other by the U.S. The WHO recommended that these last two sample be destroyed, others have argued that each side of the cold war needs to preserve a base sample to produce vaccines as a defense in the even the other side breaks their word and produces a biological warfare agent.
One nightmare Noah's Ark Scenario would be if an evil and misguided government, or religious group, obtained such an agent, produced vaccines for their own "people", and then released such an agent to destroy the rest of the population. Another nightmare scenario advanced for keeping a sample is a terrorist group obtaining samples from old graveyards perhaps, and holding the world hostage.
Even after hearing of such a possibility some who oppose keeping such samples say even more strongly this is why we should destroy all such samples. The WHO points out that in the event of an outbreak, we could produce vaccines from the exposed population, so do not need to risk "inventory control problems."
My only point is that with such complicated, nearly impossible to analyze dilemmas as this, we want to make sure our people in charge of deciding such issues on our behalf are truly top notch, thoughtful, and well informed, who completely understand their roles, and the responsibility and trust we are placing in them - and are not just Polyanna-like public relations hacks.
I would be more reassured if instead of Friedan saying"
... the NIH is currently scouring their buildings to make sure there are no other surprises left in unused storerooms. He says the problem in this case is not in the creation of the vials; the discovery points to a "problem in inventory control."
he issued some statement highlighting that he comprehends the magnitude of the dangers such examples prove are possible, and also respects that in a democracy it is the right of the people to decide if we wish to keep such samples, by saying instead':
incidents such as this illustrate the tremendous danger inherent involved with he creation of, and storage of all contagious pathogens, especially BLS-4 pathagens. The CDC appreciates these risks and dangers and further recommits itself to the proper management of all classes of pathogens. Despite the enormous risks, the CDC remains convinced that the benefits of keeping live samples of such pathogens outweighs the risk and welcome this opportunity to revisit this most crucial public policy debate. We support keeping smallpox samples because .....
And then list reasons.
In the absence of such more substantively scientific statements, by our public health "leaders " we are left to look up what Wikipedia says about the smallpox retention debate, which makes it sound as if the only reason we still keep them is that top military people in Russia and the U.S. do not wish to give them up, despite the recommendation by the WHO, in 1986, that we do so.
Smallpox was responsible for an estimated 300–500 million deaths during the 20th century.[13][14][15] As recently as 1967, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimated that 15 million people contracted the disease and that two million died in that year.[5]
Post-eradication
The last cases of smallpox in the world occurred in an outbreak of two cases (one of which was fatal) in Birmingham, UK in 1978. A medical photographer, Janet Parker, contracted the disease at the University of Birmingham Medical School and died on September 11, 1978,[78] after which Professor Henry Bedson, the scientist responsible for smallpox research at the university committed suicide.[4][79] In light of this incident, all known stocks of smallpox were destroyed or transferred to one of two WHO reference laboratories which had BSL-4 facilities; the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in the United States and the State Research Center of Virology and Biotechnology VECTOR in Koltsovo, Russia.[80]
In 1986, the World Health Organization first recommended destruction of the virus, and later set the date of destruction to be 30 December 1993. This was postponed to 30 June 1999.[81] Due to resistance from the U.S. and Russia, in 2002 the World Health Assembly agreed to permit the temporary retention of the virus stocks for specific research purposes.[82] Destroying existing stocks would reduce the risk involved with ongoing smallpox research; the stocks are not needed to respond to a smallpox outbreak.[83] Some scientists have argued that the stocks may be useful in developing new vaccines, antiviral drugs, and diagnostic tests;[84] however, a 2010 review by a team of public health experts appointed by the World Health Organization concluded that no essential public health purpose is served by the U.S. and Russia continuing to retain virus stocks.[85] The latter view is frequently supported in the scientific community, particularly among veterans of the WHO Smallpox Eradication Program.[86]
In March 2004 smallpox scabs were found tucked inside an envelope in a book on Civil War medicine in Santa Fe, New Mexico.[87] The envelope was labeled as containing scabs from a vaccination and gave scientists at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention an opportunity to study the history of smallpox vaccination in the U.S.
I'm glad the CDC is planning on destroying these samples under the supervision of the WHO, and our system seems to have worked, once we discovered these lost samples. These sampls may be so old they predate the safety protocols we now operate under, so I am not implying the CDC, or WHO made any error in the management of the smallpox viles.
I'm am raising the issues of whether they are carrying out their charter as an independent public health organization. Has their understanding of their role been compromised such that they now see themselves as reporting to, and acting as a public relations division of the Department of Defense, which they might have cross-trained for in the event of a FEMA emergency. Until such time as the President declares martial law, the CDC should be acting as an independent guardian of the safety of the public.
But, this discovery does remind us how dangerous these pathogens are, and should also call our attention to the idea that now would be an excellent time to revisit the debate about the wisdom of our current small pox retention policies and also to conduct a careful scrutiny of how the CDC understands its role, trust with, and obligation to the public rather than the Department of Defense.
11:26 PM PT: Pi Li wondered if this could be how the world ends. I reassured him that the "good news here is that this generation of smallpox was only about 30% to 40% lethal in the last outbreak, although it is thought to have killed 95% of the native American population who had no immunity to cowpox and other poxes the European descendants did.
So, if the janitor had dropped one of the viles, gone home on the subway etc, we wouldn't expect any more than around 2.8 billion deaths around the globe in a worse case. Probably a lot less, as people took measures to protect themselves. Although people born after the 1970 have no immunity so I do not know. It seems as if it may have been harder to catch than the flu.
After reading Elizabeth Kubler-Ross's books on the Five Stages of Grief, we might expect the remaining 60% of the worlds population to move on to the acceptance stage but, probably show a lot greater concern about "proper inventory control" of BLS-4 pathogens. (Snark alert. - What else can we do when faced with potential "Giga-death scenarios.)