The government has ordered millions of doses from a British company. There presently is no capability in this country to manufacture smallpox vaccine.
If the terrorists blow up the British firm that is making vaccine, be very worried.
The glee of "eradicating" smallpox caused an all-too-typical case of hubris. If we have eradicated it, we don't need to make or use any vaccine anymore, right?...with the result that most of the world's population is now "innocent" of smallpox, meaning that their immune systems have never been exposed in any way. If the virus is released it would cut through the human population like a wildfire. Maybe 1, 2 billion dead.
--Boris
On the question of supply, how hard can it be? What decade technology are we talking about here? 1940? 1910? 1890?
In 1980, as a result of Jenner's discovery, the World Health Assembly officially declared "the world and its peoples" free from endemic smallpox.
And yet all the smallpox vaccine is, is a virus which replicates very quickly. It's not like they really have to manufacturer it, it manufacturers itself.
I'd like to know what the reason is that only now are we starting this crash program for producing smallpox vaccine. According to the articles on the al Qaeda manual published on Sunday, we have had that manual, which shows an interest in biological weapons, since 1999. Is the failure to start a crash program back then another instance of Clinton's treason?
I hate foreboding thoughts -but- if the search for Ben Laden where to continue for a couple years (all the while giving Ben Laden more time to acquire his own nuke or two/suitcase type/for taking to U. S. soil) -would it then be time for Mr Neutron? (Poohbah, you might have some thoughts on this. If God Forbid the United States finally has to resort to small, tactical nukes on varying groups of mountains - how would this playout? Is it reasonable to say that one particular type of nuke mighht be better then another ie. radiation/winds/kills only people type nuke? Or is it actually the case -that nukes can't be used at all -under any circumstances, because of the wind and because of the fact that the land area where any such nuke explodes, would be contaminated for 20, 50, 100's of years?)
You know, Boris, one of the things I wrote in the margins of Ken Alibek's book as I read it, is very similar to your point - our general hubris in thinking we, with our superior attitudes regarding our own scientific capabilities and our assumptions about the "limited understanding and capabilities" of our enemies is very much a part of what has contributed to our current "behind the eight ball" situation. Sometimes we're too smart for our own good. And, we assumed that our future (now current) enemies would play by some minimal moral standards. We now face an enemy which has proved it has NO moral standards. It definately does not lend itself to a "home field" advantage for us. BUT we are a resourceful and clever people, and we will turn this situation around.