Free Republic

As moratorium lifts, oversight is put in place to assess studies on eradicated cattle virus. Research is set to resume on the rinderpest virus, the cause of a deadly cattle disease that was declared eradicated in 2011 and has been off limits for study ever since. The moratorium — part of efforts to guard against accidental or intentional release of virus that could reintroduce the disease — was lifted on 10 July and replaced by a new international oversight system for such research. In its heyday, the disease — the only one other than smallpox to be eradicated from nature...

Rinderpest will be only the second disease to be wiped out. Rinderpest, the world's most devastating cattle disease, will be declared eradicated within 18 months, according to world health bodies. The effort will make it only the second disease to be wiped from the globe — the first was smallpox, eradicated in 1980. "Rinderpest tops the list of killer diseases [in animals]," says Juan Lubroth, chief veterinary officer for the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (FAO) in Rome. It not only kills cattle and other wildlife, it also causes famines when people in developing countries lose the...