Also according to Alibek, when he defected to the US one of the last things they were working on was a smallpox/ebola combo-virus, basically derived by genesplicing.
I will not dwell on the why, since it is human nature to push science as far as it can. Hey ....Australian and American scientists were working on a super-virulent form of Influenza that uses a specific gene to literally burn its way from victim to victim. And what was the reason for that? So that they could know how super-virulent influenza virii (like the one that killed millions at the beginning of the 20th century) work.
Hence i will stay away from the 'why,' but i hope that all these scientists ensure that the genie doesn't escape.
Sadly another human trait is that anything we create gets used. Everything!
Hey ....for the first time i understand how some of the plagues in the book of Revelations that kill off a third of mankind can occur. It seemed kind of impossible at first, but think of it. What if one of those virii escaped ......