In Reversal, WHO Urges Keeping Smallpox Stocks
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Acting on fears of bioterrorism, the 191 World Health Organization members formally reversed a long-standing order for the destruction of all smallpox virus stocks and recommended that they be retained for research into new vaccines or treatment.
The World Health Assembly, the United Nations health agency’s top decision-making body, decided to drop a 2002 deadline for destroying the virus, held at top-security laboratories in the United States and Russia.
A U.S. health official at the Geneva meeting said smallpox research was needed because Sept. 11 showed how far terrorists would go.
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