GMW: US scientists push for go-ahead to genetically modify smallpox virus

[Guest guest]

GMW: US scientists push for go-ahead to genetically modify

smallpox virus

" GM WATCH " <info

Mon, 16 May 2005 09:04:43 +0100

 

 

GM WATCH daily

http://www.gmwatch.org

------

Protest against the development of GM smallpox to the World Health

Organisation:

http://www.smallpoxbiosafety.org

------

US scientists push for go-ahead to genetically modify smallpox virus

Sarah Boseley and Julian Borger in Washington

Monday, May 16, 2005

The Guardian

http://www.guardian.co.uk/medicine/story/0,11381,1484797,00.html

 

US scientists are awaiting World Health Assembly approval to begin

experiments to genetically modify the smallpox virus, one of the most

lethal organisms the planet has known.

 

Researchers have already been given the go-ahead by a technical

committee of the World Health Organisation, which accepts the argument

that

the research could bring new vaccines and treatments for smallpox closer.

This week the debate will pass for a final decision to the floor of the

full assembly of the WHO, whose representatives from 192 member states

begin a 10-day annual meeting in Geneva today.

 

Campaigners, backed by some scientists, have launched a late attempt to

stop the assembly approving GM experiments on smallpox. They fear that

the experiments would make the use of smallpox in bioterrorism more

likely, and point to the fact that the assembly itself agreed 11 years

ago

to destroy all stocks of the virus.

 

One of the relaxations of the rules would allow small pieces of the

virus' DNA to be distributed to laboratories around the world. Opponents

say there is a serious risk that the pieces could be used in an

artificial reconstruction of the virus, to be used in biological warfare.

 

Donald Henderson, of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, United

States, former director of the WHO's global smallpox eradication

programme,

says permitting the proposed experiments in an increased number of

laboratories in today's world is unwise.

 

" The problem is that we have got a lot of people with a lot more talent

working in biological laboratories around the world and a lot of them

are very well-trained and the potential for mischief here is much

greater, " he said.

 

Smallpox was eradicated as a disease in 1977. Since then stocks of the

virus have been permitted to remain in just two secure laboratories -

the US government's Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta and the

Institute for Viral Preparations in Moscow. Even so, they have not always

been strictly under the control of the WHO. Russia in 1996 admitted that

it had, without WHO permission, moved its stocks to Novosibirsk in

Siberia.

 

The original date for destruction of all stocks was 1999, but both

Russia and the US dragged their feet. The WHO then set up the Variola

(smallpox) Advisory Committee to give the WHO scientific advice on what

should and should not be permitted. The committee, known as VAC, has

gradually shifted the position away from destruction. At its last

meeting, in

November, the committee recommended that US proposals for further

experimentation on the live virus, including genetic modification,

should be

allowed.

 

Because of the sensitivity of the issue, the WHO's director general,

Lee Jong-wook, reviewed the proposals. He rejected the recommendation to

allow insertion of smallpox genes into related viruses, such as

monkeypox and cowpox, but allowed four other experiments, including

genetic

modification, to go before today's full assembly for final approval.

 

The campaign for the total eradication of the virus is led by the Third

World Network and the US-based Sunshine Project, who object that the

advisory committee is unbalanced. Nearly two-thirds of those attending

are from the US and Europe, with a further 14% from Russia. It is also,

they say on their campaign website, " weighted towards scientists with a

personal interest in conducting smallpox research " .

 

Edward Hammond, director of the Sunshine Project, said: " The set of

recommendations remains substantially unreviewed by experts in public

health, safety of genetically modified organisms and preparedness for

deliberate outbreaks of disease. "

 

Scientists are divided over the benefits to be gained from further

experiments. Anne Solomon, a biotechnology expert at the Centre for

Strategic and International Studies, said knowledge about the genetic

modification of viruses was so widespread that the US should start

preparing

counter-measures, particularly as there is no absolute certainty smallpox

virus stocks will remain confined to the US and Russia.

 

" That capability is out there, " Ms Solomon said. Professor Henderson,

however, believes that even if there are illegal stocks somewhere, the

world would be safer if the US and Russia destroyed what they have, and

the UN made it a crime against humanity for any person, laboratory or

country to keep the virus.

 

 

 

-----------------------