beaconchurches

Just finished the book The Demon in the Freezer about the possibility of smallpox resurfacing.

Officially smallpox exists in 2 freezers--one in Atlanta and one in the former Soviet Union. It is suspected that much more not only exists but that the Soviets developed weapons grade smallpox by the ton and the warheads to drop it.

Australian scientists developed a mousepox that killed 100% of the mouse population it was exposed to--regardless of vacination--by inserting the IL-4 mouse gene into the mousepox cells. Biological information on how to insert the IL-4 gene is public knowledge. American scientists inserted the IL-4 gene into mousepox and developed the supermousepox virus in 5 months of incubation.

If smallpox becomes available to an unethical scientist with no self-preservation intact in his being, the entire population of the world could become extinct within 6 or 7 months of his acquiring the smallpox seeds.

Thoughts?

Hi Evangeline,
I just read a new alarm from the global warming crowd.
As the tundra thaws, bodies carrying things like small pox will become exposed, thaw and potentially infect whoever finds them.
The good news is, if it isn't as catastrophic as your post projects, we beat it once, we can do it again.
My guess is that when the pale horse actually does ride, it will be far more similar to the black plague. We may lose one in three, but I doubt we will lose everyone.
Art

That is interesting. It probably IS good news.

Of course the Black Plague is still around in California, Arizona and the surrounding areas. It came to America on a boat in 1900 and landed in San Francisco's Chinatown. It jumped from rats to squirrels just before they caught it.

The best news from the book is that USAMRID went to the effort of reproducing the Mousepox results and discovered that that it is possible to vaccinate against it and save a small portion of the population. And the even better news is that because of the Super Mousepox and the threat of Super Smallpox, there is a game plan. That's always good.