TERRORISTS COULD BREED NEW POX

“With a basic level of biological training, terrorists could modify smallpox or monkeypox viruses and create a previously unseen strain of biological weapon,” Global Security Newswire reports.
Monkeypox is the easier of the two to make and get, says St. Louis University virologist Mark Buller. But it’s less lethal — with a mortality rate around 10 percent. The Newswire notes that “a strain of monkeypox was brought into the United States by a pet giant Gambian rat earlier this year, but there were no fatalities among the 49 reported cases.”
Earlier this month, Defense Tech heavyweights duked it out over whether terrorists would ever take the time to breed a new, pox-based biological monster.

October 27th, 2003 | Chem-Bio | Comments Off Both comments and pings are currently closed.