Should the last remaining smallpox samples be destroyed?

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I found this article from 2011. I couldn't find one this year.
http://www.livescience.com/13667-smallp ... ation.html

It's a really dumb idea. By destroying the last remaining virus samples, we are presuming that only two laboratories in the world have samples: the USA's CDC and Russia's Ivanovsky Institute of Science.

A very dangerous presumption:
- when all the countries were asked to get rid of their samples, it was an honor system. nobody went and inspected every single laboratory in the world.
- do you really think the rogue countries would've destroyed their samples?
- considerable allegations say that Russia weaponized smallpox and produced it by the ton. they had it at various locations.
- when Russia fell to communism, their security became lax and people could easily walk off with freeze dried smallpox
- various Russian bioweaponeers became unemployed and could get employment elsewhere
- in 2002 they synthetically created polio 100% from scratch. in the very distant future, they could create smallpox:
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/12/us/tr ... all&src=pm

I'd keep it. Is it dangerous to keep it? Yes. But, if smallpox ever comes back, being able to compare the new strain to the old and already cured strain could help in the development of a cure/vaccine.

This is a serious matter. The concerns you have raised are valid. It would probably be best to keep the last ones just in case. However, they need to be under extremely tight security.

For the reasons you list, I think Smallpox samples should be kept under the continuing tight security under which they are currently kept.

Somewhere on this planet, a handful of people who have never heard of intimate shaving keep humanity's last samples of pubic lice in their pants.

Well I hold the view that the number of sites where smallpox is stored should be kept low (I have heard that one Russain and one US site have it) but the last remaining samples should not be destroyed in case smallpox or a similar virus becomes a public health problem in the future.

I think without the samllpox samples the battle against the virus would be harder.

I think that crabs is a smaller public health problem, I think that we can allow these organisms to become extinct. But I think it would be close to impossible to coordinate a shaving/insecticide program to exterminate them.

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can anything useful or beneficial be done with the remaining virus? If so, it should be store very carefully.

ruveyn