To kill a killer?

A vaccine put an end to smallpox epidemics. Should we take the next step and wipe out the virus itself? Debate and decide.

Have you ever thought about the day people stop getting AIDS? There will surely be great celebrating everywhere. But scientists who researched the cure will then be faced with a new problem: what to do with all the AIDS virus they have stored in their labs. Should they destroy it to make sure no one gets AIDS again?

Before you answer yes, consider: What if a new AIDS-like illness appeared? Having samples of HIV on hand for further study could help scientists understand how the new disease works. And that might save lives.

The dilemma is a lot like one scientists are wrestling with today. They are trying to decide whether to kill the samples of the virus that causes smallpox.

This is no small step; never before have we decided on purpose to wipe out an entire life-form. Many scientists consider a virus a living thing, just like a flower or a peregrine falcon or a human being--even though a virus has no cells and is mostly DNA or RNA. The only way a virus can live and reproduce is to infect the cells of other living things: viruses uses the cells' machinery to multiply.

Do we have the right to eliminate this life-form? Members of the World Health Organization (WHO), a branch of the United Nations, say we do. They've recommended that the virus stored in laboratories be killed.

Fifteen years ago, WHO doctors went to poor countries and vaccinated people wherever smallpox was still appearing. That's how they helped rid the world of the disease. And now they fear that if the virus is not destroyed, the worst plague in history might someday return.

A VACCINE AT LAST

Smallpox killed millions of people from the beginning of recorded history to the twentieth century. Victims of smallpox would get burning, pus-filled blisters all over their bodies; most died within two weeks.

At the height of the epidemic, in the eighteenth century, people were as frightened of the disease as we are of AIDS today, according to smallpox historian Donald Hopkins. They could catch smallpox like you might catch the flu--just by being near someone who had it. That's because the smallpox virus can travel through the air. (The AIDS virus, in contrast, survives only in body fluids.)

Until 200 years ago, the only way people could avoid smallpox was to flee whenever it arrived in their town. But finally, a doctor named Edward Jenner found a way to prevent the disease.

Jenner noticed that milkmaids who had caught a mild illness from cows did not get smallpox. He wondered if the illness, known as cowpox, somehow protected them.

To test his hypothesis, Jenner collected pus from cowpox blisters, and applied it to a break in the skin of healthy people. He found that after coming down with the mild illness, they were protected against smallpox.

Thus Jenner invented the world's first vaccine. Scientists later discovered that it worked by stimulating the body to produce antibodies, agents that fight specific "invaders"--in this case, the cowpox and smallpox viruses. (Scientists are now working to find a vaccine for AIDS.)

As more and more people were vaccinated against smallpox, the disease began to disappear. That's because the smallpox virus can infect only humans, and with practically everyone protected against it, the virus died out.

A NEW THREAT

So far, smallpox is the only contagious disease ever to be eradicated, though polio is on its way out. Once smallpox was gone, doctors stopped giving the vaccine. So now, ironically, most people are susceptible to smallpox again.

WHO members are worried that the virus might escape from the lab and again kill millions. Perhaps, they say, terrorists might even steal the virus and let it loose on their enemies.

For that reason, the virus is locked in freezers under tight security in two laboratories--one in Moscow and one in Atlanta. The labs have some of the highest safety standards in the world.

Brian W. J. Mahy, a scientist in charge of the virus lab in Atlanta, says the smallpox virus should be destroyed because it costs too much to keep it in the special labs. If it were eliminated, he says, more new viruses could be installed in the lab for study there.

But other scientists say the virus should be saved because it could shed light on how related viruses cause disease and how to fight them. In fact, studying how the smallpox virus overcomes the immune system may even lead to major breakthroughs in efforts to control AIDS and other viral diseases, according to Wolfgang Joklik, a microbiologist at Duke University.

Joklik says the labs that store the virus are so secure that it could not escape or be stolen. Besides, he adds, anybody wishing to carry out biological warfare would not choose the smallpox virus because there is a vaccine available. If the virus got out, people could be vaccinated quickly to stop the spread of the disease. Also, the vaccine lessens the severity of smallpox even when given after someone has already caught it.

Should we execute the virus? What do you think?