Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Small Pox used as a weapon???

I think small pox can indeed be used as a weapon in these modern times. With small pox eradicated since the 1970s and vaccinations no longer done, the world’s population is very vulnerable to a bio-terrorist attack by the use of small pox. There are 2 heavily guarded locations around the world that still carry this deadly strain of virus one is the United States and one in Russia. The reason of having the deadly virus still around is for research and creation of new vaccines purposes. Scientist have found that small pox can be reversed engineered from small pox victim’s DNA to its deadly from and then re introduced to a living host, to where that person would spread it to the community. Since it’s an air born disease it would be hard to stop from spreading. This will affect the wellness of the world’s population making it a Public Health issue. Although this sounds scary, I believe that the chances of that happening is very tiny. These places with the virus are heavily guarded and terrorist are not likely to break in and steal the virus, but this is not a “small” matter, prevention steps should still be taken to prevent a catastrophic event like small pox to be used as a weapon.

1 comment:

  1. I didn't think small pox could be reversed engineered and then re-introduced. I thought small pox was easy to cure, so I didn't think of it as a threat. I also didn't know that small pox was an air born disease. It would be scary for a disease that was thought to be eliminated to resurface and cause problems because it would the last thing anyone would expect to happen.

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