[Mitchell]

One of the reasons bio-terrorism may not be used is that once un-leashed its spread may not be controlled and that the West would be better to handle it but the third world would get screwed.

Yes, this is why anthrax (which is not contagious) is a greater threat in practice than smallpox (which is very contagious).

Smallpox would not be a targeted biological weapon. Its use only makes sense as a desperate act by someone who is convinced that their last chance for success lies in disrupting world order everywhere, killing indiscriminately (with, in fact, a worse effect in the third world than in the medically better-prepared developed countries).

[Sweet_Sunflower29]

Promed claimed that the Kurds might be misslabeling the illness. Now we have Urdu speakers doing the same thing? There is one English word known worldwide, Smallpox. I doubt very much that smallpox could be misrepresented. There are still people alive today on the planet that carry the scar of smallpox. No way that could be mislabeled, especially in countries like Pakistan, NE Iraq, and those in Africa. Those populations remember all to well smallpox.

Pakistani and Indian as well as Iraqi doctors are all too familiar with the disease. Last year there was both chickenpox and measles outbreaks in the area and no one called the outbreaks smallpox.
It is too simplistic to label these people backward and uneducated and unaware of a disease that ravaged their land for too many years in their history.

The Indian Army has been rumoured (by those inside, reporting to family and friends) to be ready to strike Pakistan by last weekend. May 25 was the actual date of the "two weeks to go" warning. What would you say? Come on by, bring the wife and kids. By the Way, we've got a smallpox epidemic here. It would surely give them pause and break the momentum of the thrust, and appears to have done just that! Remember, truth is the first casualty of war.
This considered, note this ProMed article from 6 weeks ago titled UNDIAGNOSED VESICULAR DISEASE - PAKISTAN (SINDH): REQUEST FOR INFO

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