From the book "Germs:"
"Pentagon officials argued that a public ceremony announcing the elimination of the smallpox virus would be a charade. First, WHO had had no means to determine whether all countries had carried out their pledges to destroy existing stocks or transfer the virus to WHO repositories. It had simply accepted national declarations. Second, Pentagon officials believed that several nations, including American allies, had also secretely decided to maintain clandestine stocks. Even if every country was smallpox free, the deadly virus might be recreated from related microbes if a country wanted to make new stocks. Smallpox, they argued, was simply too tempting a weapon to abandon.
"Finally, they argued, destroying the Russian and American stocks would complicate efforts to develop a new vaccine and antiviral drugs against the disease. America's population, which had not been vaccinated against smallpox since 1972, was particularly vulnerable. If the contagious virus was used in a terrorist attack, one expert said, 'we are all Indians,' a reference to the devastating effects smallpox had on the Native American population after European settlers had arrived."
I suspect that we owe our defenselessness to a bunch of socks-and-sandals liberals. Also, I don't see why everyone can't pay for his own vaccine. $10.00? Why is this an entitlement? Looks like they are planning to make it mandatory. If it had been available, I never would have let my immunity lapse. But I have reservations about taking a shot that has been rushed into production.
We knew and accepted that variola virus would survive in Atlanta and Moscow (at a minimum) and we went ahead and created the largest susceptible population in human history (our own children).
It's like scrapping the Navy after the Kellog-Briand Pact in 1928 outlawed war.
Absurd.