STOP SMALLPOX GENETIC ENGINEERING!

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URGENT ALERT! TAKE ACTION NOW!

 

STOP SMALLPOX GENETIC ENGINEERING!

 

4 April 2005

 

Please take action now to stop smallpox genetic engineering!

 

Visit www.smallpoxbiosafety.org to send a letter to the WHO Director

General, urging the World Health Assembly to reject a proposal that would

permit the genetic engineering of smallpox, and to instead ensure that

all remaining stocks of the virus are destroyed within two years.

 

The proposal to genetically engineer smallpox, which would also permit

smallpox genes to be inserted into related poxviruses and the unlimited

distribution of small segments of smallpox DNA, poses a large number of

public health, biosafety, and biological weapons risks.

 

The World Health Assembly will discuss the proposal when it meets in

Geneva, Switzerland from 16-25 May 2005.

 

Every letter counts, so please send one today. This is very easily done

by going to www.smallpoxbiosafety.org, selecting your language of

preference, entering the required details, and clicking on the `submit'

button.

 

Please also contact your government's representatives to the WHA. The

website provides links to national health ministries. The website is

available in Chinese, English, French, German, Italian, and Spanish.

 

Attached are the press release and some background information.

 

With best wishes,

Third World Network

121-S Jalan Utama

10450 Penang

Malaysia

Email: twnet

 

 

Press Release

The Sunshine Project

Third World Network

http://smallpoxbiosafety.org

 

This text is also available in:

Chinese: http://smallpoxbiosafety.org/who/prchinese.html

French: http://smallpoxbiosafety.org/who/prfrench.html

German: http://smallpoxbiosafety.org/who/prgerman.html

Italian: http://smallpoxbiosafety.org/who/pritalian.html

Spanish: http://smallpoxbiosafety.org/who/prspanish.html

 

International Campaign to Stop Smallpox Genetic Engineering Announced

 

Non-Governmental Organizations Urge the World Health Organization to

Put Smallpox in the History Books Instead of the Genetic Engineering Lab

 

(4 April 2005) – An international alliance of non-governmental

organizations has launched a campaign to urge the World Health

Organization to

reject a proposal that would permit the genetic engineering of smallpox

and to instead ensure that all remaining stocks of the virus are

destroyed within two years. Debate on the proposal will take place at the

World Health Assembly (WHA), which meets in Geneva, Switzerland beginning

on May 16th.

 

The NGOs, led by Third World Network and The Sunshine Project, have

opened a website, www.smallpoxbiosafety.org, where organizations and

individuals can send letters to the WHO Director General. The website

provides links to health ministries, so that people can also contact

their

government's representatives to the WHA. The website is available in

Chinese, English, French, German, Italian, and Spanish.

 

The proposal to genetically engineer smallpox, which would also permit

smallpox genes to be inserted into related poxviruses and the unlimited

distribution of small segments of smallpox DNA, poses a large number of

public health, biosafety, and biological weapons risks. It was

prompted by the United States, and has been recommended to the WHA

through an

imbalanced advisory committee. A Briefing Paper (The Genetic

Engineering of Smallpox: WHO's Retreat from the Eradication of

Smallpox Virus and

Why it Should be Stopped) at the website explains the political process

that led to the proposal, the risks, and why it should be rejected. An

edited excerpt from the paper that provides more background is appended

to this news release.

 

Between now and the May opening of the WHA, the NGOs will be seeking to

mobilize a wide variety of non-governmental organization and citizens.

They will contact all member governments of WHO and urge them to reject

the committee's recommendations and to instead:

 

* Prohibit the genetic engineering of smallpox, the insertion of

smallpox genes in other poxviruses, and any further distribution of

smallpox

genetic material for non-diagnostic purposes;

 

* Set a firm and irrevocable date, within two years, for the

destruction of all remaining stocks of smallpox virus (including viral

chimeras,

or hybrids with other poxviruses);

 

* In the interim before destruction, ensure that the WHO Advisory

Committee on Variola Virus Research and its advisors are regionally

balanced

and that the Committee and its subsidiary groups conduct their

oversight activities in a fully transparent and accountable manner.

 

Interested organizations and people are urged to visit

www.smallpoxbiosafety.org to learn more about this issue and to send a

letter to the

WHO Director General.

 

Contacts:

 

Third World Network The Sunshine Project

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia Austin, Texas, US

Tel: + 603-2300 2585 Tel: +1 512 494 0545

E-mail: twnkl E-mail: tsp

GMT + 7 GMT -6

 

Background

 

The World Health Organization (WHO) is justly proud of the global

effort that brought about the eradication of smallpox in 1977; but the

truth

of the matter is that the job was never finished. The United States and

Russia still retain stocks of the smallpox virus (Variola major), an

easily transmitted disease and ancient scourge of humanity that is a

potent biological weapons agent. Smallpox kills one quarter or more of

the

people it infects and leaves many that do not die disfigured and blind.

 

In 1999, the remaining stocks of smallpox virus were slated for

imminent destruction. But Russia and the US balked at the World Health

Assembly (WHA) resolution calling upon them to destroy the virus.

Instead, the

US has accelerated smallpox research. Now, it wants to open the

Pandora's Box of genetically-engineered smallpox. A plan to genetically

engineer the virus could be approved by the World Health Assembly in May

2005. The plan also includes the expression of smallpox genes in related

poxviruses, and unlimited distribution of segments of smallpox DNA. If

implemented, this plan would pose serious biosafety risks and open the

road to an artificial reconstruction of the virus for biowarfare

purposes.

 

Fewer and fewer people, and their leaders, have personal memories of

the horror of smallpox, or even the scars left by vaccination, which had

ended in most countries by the late 1970s. As if the world is condemned

to repeat history through forgetfulness, WHO has now lost the political

will that it once had to finish the job of smallpox eradication. Much

of the blame can be laid at the feet of WHO's decision to leave

oversight of smallpox research in the hands of an unbalanced and highly

politicized " technical " advisory committee that is dominated by a

small number

of countries and scientists with a personal interest in pursuing

smallpox research. It was US pressure that rammed the proposal for

genetically-engineered smallpox through that committee, and now the

World Health

Assembly is in an inglorious position of being on the verge of

endorsing what may prove to be the undoing of one its own greatest

achievements.

 

Civil society and like-minded governments must urgently come together

to turn the tide. The creation of genetically-engineered smallpox and

hybrids of smallpox and other viruses (called chimera) pose serious

public health, biosafety, and biological weapons dangers to the entire

world. With increased smallpox experimentation, the world stands

closer to

the accident or deliberate act that would cause a release of the virus.

 

Because many poxviruses are closely-related to each other and, in their

natural state frequently not entirely species-specific, the insertion

of smallpox genes in related viruses has the potential to create

dangerous new human (and animal) pathogens. Through genetic

engineering or

targeted mutations, labs that receive pieces of the smallpox genome may

develop the ability to create smallpox or a novel virus with its

characteristics without ever receiving an actual sample of Variola major.

Moreover, laboratory safety practices and technology cannot erase human

error and equipment failures that lead to accidents, as evidenced by a

recent string of lab-acquired infections and environmental releases of

SARS, Ebola, tularemia, and other dangerous diseases. In fact, the last

reported human cases of smallpox were laboratory-acquired (see page 3 of

the Briefing Paper - The Genetic Engineering of Smallpox: WHO's Retreat

from the Eradication of Smallpox Virus and Why it Should be Stopped).

 

Contained to only two labs in Russia and the US, smallpox has a unique

multilateral research oversight structure that has no parallel with any

other disease. Because of the unique situation of smallpox research, if

WHO approves these experiments it will not only increase the threat

posed by smallpox itself. WHO will also broadcast the signal that it is

internationally acceptable to have genetic engineering of other germs,

including experiments in which new and more dangerous forms may result –

or even be intended.

 

If endorsed by the WHA, the intergovernmental encouragement of the

creation of designer disease will come at a particularly dangerous time.

Globally, the number of high containment facilities handling dangerous

disease agents is expanding and the hazardous applications of

biotechnology increasing. This is reflected in a growing number of lab

accidents

in a variety of countries in recent years involving highly pathogenic

agents in high containment facilities. Particularly in the US, the scope

and quantity of research on biological weapons agents is growing, and

now exceeds the cost of the effort that created the atomic bomb (the

Manhattan Project), adjusted for inflation.

 

Individuals and civil society organizations should take action and

voice their opposition to WHO and their national public health

authorities,

urging them to reject the recommendations of the committee and to

instead ensure prompt destruction of all remaining virus stocks. This

briefing provides a political overview of smallpox eradication, the WHO

processes that led to the present state of affairs, and related issues of

biosafety and prohibitions on biological weapons.

 

 

 

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