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December 9, 2002
The current plans to vaccinate Americans against smallpox are based on the assumption that Iraq, or terrorists, have gotten their hands on live smallpox virus. There are only supposed to be two collections of live smallpox left, one in the U.S. and the other in Russia. But it has long been rumored that some scientists or governments collected and preserved (refrigerated) smallpox from victims before the last case was seen in Africa in the late 1970s. Whoever might have done this was not about to publicize it, for the nations of the world, via the UN, agreed to cooperate to wipe out smallpox. Since the virus has been a major killer for thousands of years, no nation refused to participate in the eradication campaign. But this would not have prevented a scientist or technician from secretly taking a sample and preserving it. Such sample, or samples, would be the ultimate, and deadliest, collectable. And there have been persistent, and unconfirmed, rumors that such samples, from whatever source, have been available for sale.
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