International Campaign to Stop Smallpox Genetic Engineering Announced
- From: ehammond@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: 6 Apr 2005 07:28:12 -0700
Press Release
The Sunshine Project
Third World Network
http://smallpoxbiosafety.org
This text is also available in:
Chinese: http://smallpoxbiosafety.org/who/prchinese.html
French: http://smallpoxbiosafety.org/who/prfrench.html
German: http://smallpoxbiosafety.org/who/prgerman.html
Italian: http://smallpoxbiosafety.org/who/pritalian.html
Spanish: http://smallpoxbiosafety.org/who/prspanish.html
International Campaign to Stop Smallpox Genetic Engineering Announced
Non-Governmental Organizations Urge the World Health Organization to
Put Smallpox in the History Books Instead of the Genetic Engineering
Lab
(4 April 2005) - An international alliance of non-governmental
organizations has launched a campaign to urge the World Health
Organization to reject a proposal that would permit the genetic
engineering of smallpox and to instead ensure that all remaining stocks
of the virus are destroyed within two years. Debate on the proposal
will take place at the World Health Assembly (WHA), which meets in
Geneva, Switzerland beginning on May 16th.
The NGOs, led by Third World Network and The Sunshine Project, have
opened a website, www.smallpoxbiosafety.org, where organizations and
individuals can send letters to the WHO Director General. The website
provides links to health ministries, so that people can also contact
their government's representatives to the WHA. The website is available
in Chinese, English, French, German, Italian, and Spanish.
The proposal to genetically engineer smallpox, which would also permit
smallpox genes to be inserted into related poxviruses and the unlimited
distribution of small segments of smallpox DNA, poses a large number of
public health, biosafety, and biological weapons risks. It was prompted
by the United States, and has been recommended to the WHA through an
imbalanced advisory committee. A Briefing Paper (The Genetic
Engineering of Smallpox: WHO's Retreat from the Eradication of Smallpox
Virus and Why it Should be Stopped) at the website explains the
political process that led to the proposal, the risks, and why it
should be rejected. An edited excerpt from the paper that provides more
background is appended to this news release.
Between now and the May opening of the WHA, the NGOs will be seeking to
mobilize a wide variety of non-governmental organization and citizens.
They will contact all member governments of WHO and urge them to reject
the committee's recommendations and to instead:
* Prohibit the genetic engineering of smallpox, the insertion of
smallpox genes in other poxviruses, and any further distribution of
smallpox genetic material for non-diagnostic purposes;
* Set a firm and irrevocable date, within two years, for the
destruction of all remaining stocks of smallpox virus (including viral
chimeras, or hybrids with other poxviruses);
* In the interim before destruction, ensure that the WHO Advisory
Committee on Variola Virus Research and its advisors are regionally
balanced and that the Committee and its subsidiary groups conduct their
oversight activities in a fully transparent and accountable manner.
Interested organizations and people are urged to visit
www.smallpoxbiosafety.org to learn more about this issue and to send a
letter to the WHO Director General.
----------
Background
The World Health Organization (WHO) is justly proud of the global
effort that brought about the eradication of smallpox in 1977; but the
truth of the matter is that the job was never finished. The United
States and Russia still retain stocks of the smallpox virus (Variola
major), an easily transmitted disease and ancient scourge of humanity
that is a potent biological weapons agent. Smallpox kills one quarter
or more of the people it infects and leaves many that do not die
disfigured and blind.
In 1999, the remaining stocks of smallpox virus were slated for
imminent destruction. But Russia and the US balked at the World Health
Assembly (WHA) resolution calling upon them to destroy the virus.
Instead, the US has accelerated smallpox research. Now, it wants open
the Pandora's Box of genetically-engineered smallpox. A plan to
genetically engineer the virus could be approved by the World Health
Assembly in May 2005. The plan also includes the expression of smallpox
genes in related poxviruses, and unlimited distribution of segments of
smallpox DNA. If implemented, this plan would pose serious biosafety
risks and open the road to an artificial reconstruction of the virus
for biowarfare purposes.
Fewer and fewer people, and their leaders, have personal memories of
the horror of smallpox, or even the scars left by vaccination, which
had ended in most countries by the late 1970s. As if the world is
condemned to repeat history through forgetfulness, WHO has now lost the
political will that it once had to finish the job of smallpox
eradication. Much of the blame can be laid at the feet of WHO's
decision to leave oversight of smallpox research in the hands of an
unbalanced and highly politicized "technical" advisory committee that
is dominated by a small number of countries and scientists with a
personal interest in pursuing smallpox research. It was US pressure
that rammed the proposal for genetically-engineered smallpox through
that committee, and now the World Health Assembly is in an inglorious
position of being on the verge of endorsing what may prove to be the
undoing of one its own greatest achievements.
Civil society and like-minded governments must urgently come together
to turn the tide. The creation of genetically-engineered smallpox and
hybrids of smallpox and other viruses (called chimera) pose serious
public health, biosafety, and biological weapons dangers to the entire
world. With increased smallpox experimentation, the world stands closer
to the accident or deliberate act that would cause a release of the
virus.
Because many poxviruses are closely-related to each other and, in their
natural state frequently not entirely species-specific, the insertion
of smallpox genes in related viruses has the potential to create
dangerous new human (and animal) pathogens. Through genetic engineering
or targeted mutations, labs that receive pieces of the smallpox genome
may develop the ability to create smallpox or a novel virus with its
characteristics without ever receiving an actual sample of Variola
major. Moreover, laboratory safety practices and technology cannot
erase human error and equipment failures that lead to accidents, as
evidenced by a recent string of lab-acquired infections and
environmental releases of SARS, Ebola, tularemia, and other dangerous
diseases. In fact, the last reported human cases of smallpox were
laboratory-acquired (see page 3 of the Briefing Paper - The Genetic
Engineering of Smallpox: WHO's Retreat from the Eradication of Smallpox
Virus and Why it Should be Stopped).
Contained to only two labs in Russia and the US, smallpox has a unique
multilateral research oversight structure that has no parallel with any
other disease. Because of the unique situation of smallpox research, if
WHO approves these experiments it will not only increase the threat
posed by smallpox itself. WHO will also broadcast the signal that it is
internationally acceptable to have genetic engineering of other germs,
including experiments in which new and more dangerous forms may result
- or even be intended.
If endorsed by the WHA, the intergovernmental encouragement of the
creation of designer disease will come at a particularly dangerous
time. Globally, the number of high containment facilities handling
dangerous disease agents is expanding and the hazardous applications of
biotechnology increasing. This is reflected in a growing number of lab
accidents in a variety of countries in recent years involving highly
pathogenic agents in high containment facilities. Particularly in the
US, the scope and quantity of research on biological weapons agents is
growing, and now exceeds the cost of the effort that created the atomic
bomb (the Manhattan Project), adjusted for inflation.
Individuals and civil society organizations should take action and
voice their opposition to WHO and their national public health
authorities, urging them to reject the recommendations of the committee
and to instead ensure prompt destruction of all remaining virus stocks.
This briefing provides a political overview of smallpox eradication,
the WHO processes that led to the present state of affairs, and related
issues of biosafety and prohibitions on biological weapons.
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