Newly Discovered Smallpox Samples | Hacker News Reader

Newly Discovered Smallpox Samples

cdc.gov

92 pointsdrcode49 comments

The most impressive part of this for me is that there is international law and oversight which was immediately brought into play. WHO representatives being invited to watch the destruction? That is both extremely responsible and acknowledges an authority outside of the US government. That mindset is far too rare in this country.

If you think about it, this falls firmly into the "symbolic gestures" category.

They had nothing to gain or lose from making this into a political statement, so they invited them.

You learn about responsibility and authority when there is something to gain or lose.

Excellent observation. Whenever you see international power acquiesce to an international power (the UN is a great example), it's because it's political expedient to do so, not because they stand in awe of the international body.

Technocrats tend to work well with other technocrats.

To be fair, anyone who's ever been in a biologic lab setting is probably interested in this stuff enough to know about smallpox being held exclusively in Atlanta and VECTOR, and know enough to immediately cover those with every covering available and, at the same time, calling for help to everyone who could help until help arrived.

Can you imagine the consequences?! Ms Dumblefoot, would you tell us the story of Steve Campbell again? Well children, he was a researcher at NIH who found smallpox and dumped it in the trash. It was scattered to the winds from the top of Fort Totten and that's ultimately how, after a few cycles of unexplained seasons of worsening local outbreaks, 10% of the greater DC metro population, and half the healthcare workers, died in the great 2023 outbreak just before vaccination was back in full swing. It should be contained in another 30 to 40 years, assuming the Chinese haven't weaponized it.

> immediately brought into play

Actually, we have no idea how quickly things were brought into play. The article is carefully worded to note the date when the virus discovery was announced, not when the vials were actually found.

For all we know, this was could have been bouncing around between departments for weeks, months, etc.

Its unlikely it was bouncing around for long. Both NIH and CDC have long standing, and rehearsed, plans for the discovery of select agents and toxins, including dealing with sample discovery in less-than-appropriate containment. I work with a few select agents and while there's a ton of bureaucracy around it (Forms in not just triplicate but quadruplicate), that bureaucracy is both for the safety of everyone and for quick reaction to hazards. For examples, every log for our BSL-3's is reviewed within a few hours of modification. If a question comes up, users have 4 hours to respond to them. If they fail to do so certain containment procedures go into effect.

The entirety of the discovery, initial testing and planning phase likely took less than 2 days. If there's one thing either organization doesn't fucked with, it is select agents and toxins.

Since the virus survives freezing there's certainly some frozen bodies that harbor the disease as well. The idea is sort of dismissed in [1] but the CDC quotes there are more about the prospects for a pandemic then whether the virus is likely present all over the arctic (etc.) or not.

[1] http://gizmodo.com/will-smallpox-reemerge-in-siberia-as-corp...

edit:

According to [2] things like tundra smallpox are the reason the US didn't want to destroy the last lab samples.

[2] http://www.livescience.com/2403-climate-threat-thawing-tundr...

They haven't destroyed the last samples. There are official samples in America and Russia still.

Can you provide any references to that effect? I'm pretty sure the closest we still officially have is a virus that is derived from smallpox, which they convinced to jump species and infect apes.

Unofficially, well... case in point.

From TFA:

  By international agreement, there are two official World 
  Health Organization (WHO)-designated repositories for 
  smallpox: CDC in Atlanta, Georgia and the State Research 
  Centre of Virology and Biotechnology (VECTOR) in Novosibirsk, 
  Russia. The WHO oversees the inspection of these smallpox 
  facilities and conducts periodic reviews to certify the 
  repositories for safety and security.

Thanks. It's a little surprising to me since I seem to remember one of Richard Preston's books ending with VECTOR and CDC destroying their samples (and doing the species jump to create something that would theoretically infect monkeys but not people). Perhaps my recollection is incorrect...

I remain amused at how wrath of god people can get with the downvoting. :)

I can't speak for the others, but I almost downvoted you. And the reason is simple: the article was an eight paragraph piece, with your remark neatly answered in the sixth.

People can get a little mad when contested by something refuted in the (short) required reading.

But you are a little right. There was a big push to destroy all samples, with USA and Russia fighting to keep them for military reasons.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smallpox_virus_retention_contro...

I think bringing up Biohazard[0], a book about soviet bio warfare experiments and the culture they were conducted in seems pertinent. In particular it is illuminating, if not factually accurate, how Soviets covered up accidents at their bio weapon research facilities. Book paints a grim picture of how this could have been handled, in light of that I applaud actions taken by NIH and CDC.

http://www.amazon.com/Biohazard-Chilling-Largest-Biological-...

I was initially keen to read this, as it appears to be one of the only works on the topic of the Soviet bio-warfare program. However, the author's scientific credibility and "authenticity" (for lack of a better term) has been called into question: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Alibek#Criticism

However, there are some Soviet bio-weapon incidents I've read about which were verified (by people other than Ken Alibek) as having genuinely occurred.

Confused about this part:

"Additional testing of the variola samples is under way to determine if the material in the vials is viable (i.e., can grow in tissue culture). This testing could take up to 2 weeks. After completion of this testing, the samples will be destroyed."

Why not just destroy the samples outright? What's the reason for incubating a live sample and then destroying it?

On discovery (or receipt) of a select agent you always, always, test for viability. There are a few reasons, a few that rank high on the list: they want to know how long smallpox can survive in inappropriate storage (too hot, freeze/thaw, etc); they want to genotype and phenotype this sample for records in case it shows up else where; viable, unpassaged smallpox is rare.

Makes sense. Also, I just realized, is if it's viable was there any opportunity for exposure.

Scary to put it lightly. You'd think that we would be more careful with such things. I could only imagine who actually found the sample, and if they even realized what it was without Googling. An even worse thought would be if they were to just throw it in the trash.

I'm pretty sure anyone that speaks a Romance language may recognize 'variola' as smallpox. I guess the original label used the Latin name. Also, in a CDC laboratory, I'd bet dollars vs pennies there's already a protocol for handling "old badly labelled samples" that includes "not opening" and "not misplacing".

yeah i don't think you throw random stuff in the trash, i'm sure they go into a bio hazard disposal.

It began at the FDA, which doesn't routinely handle substances of this type. That's why it was transferred to NIH in Bethesda temporarily while the CDC team came up from Atlanta.

Well, no, it began at the NIH. NIH handed the labs over to the FDA, and apparently missed a vial during the move.

Ahh. Yet still, it was not found at CDC by CDC employees more likely to be trained to handle highly infectious samples.

> I'm pretty sure anyone that speaks a Romance language may recognize 'variola' as smallpox.

Wait, what? Are you limiting that to people who work in an area where they might possibly come into contact with it? Because otherwise you might find it fun to ask the next hundred people you meet what "variola" is.

You realize English is not a Romance language?

In general, when you come across any sample that's not yours or something whose label you can't read or don't recognize, you don't touch it at all until you can find someone who does. If you can't find anybody, you handle that sample as if it contains poison - even if it's just a long-dead colony.

I assume that the CDC/FDA/NIH have more stringent protocol in place.

Meanwhile:

OFFICIALS at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently discovered that at least 75 workers there had been exposed to possible anthrax infection.

and

Based on current reports, the problem arose when anthrax — incorrectly thought to be dead — was removed from the high-containment lab and exposed people who had no knowledge that they were in contact with live bacteria.

from

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/30/opinion/anthrax-thats-not-...

Yeah, I read that. Just like in all disasters, the biggest contributor to catastrophic failure is human error. I'm sure the protocols were in place to prevent something like this from happening.

Just to remind everyone what we are dealing with here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_smallpox

  During the 20th century, it is estimated that smallpox 
  was responsible for 300–500 million deaths.

Half a billion people dead, after a vaccine was discovered. And that was one century of the 12,000 years it has existed.

That's why I get shivers from the opening of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smallpox:

  Smallpox *was* an infectious disease...

  [...]

  To this day, smallpox is the only human infectious
  disease to have been completely eradicated.

Was there not a debate recently on wether to dispose of the last vials of smallpox because there would be no need to produce a vaccine as the virus had been eradicated.....

Not sure where I read it, or heard from someone, but it was about how some such similar disease (maybe even smallpox) that produces scabs and how someone found a scab from it in a library manuscript. This is somewhat similar.

Wikipedia: "In March 2004 smallpox scabs were found tucked inside an envelope in a book on Civil War medicine in Santa Fe, New Mexico. The envelope was labeled as containing scabs from a vaccination and gave scientists at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention an opportunity to study the history of smallpox vaccination in the U.S."

Ah thank you. That's the story I remember!

So these scabs would be the product of infection with vaccinia and not variola, if my understanding is correct.

I don't recall that. I do remember an article recently about recreating Spanish Flu in the laboratory. It's very controversial because it spread quickly and killed millions of people in a really short time span.

For smallpox, some believe it's possible it may still exist somewhere cold frozen in ice. I don't know how credible that threat is though.

Wondering why we are keeping two samples? Is it for future use 'just in case' or is there some great reason I am missing?

Question for those with knowledge -- would a 60-ish year old sample still be virulent/communicable/whatever?

Possible, but not incredibly likely unless it was prepared via freeze-drying for long-term storage. I wouldn't want to huff it, though.

"They were freeze-dried, intact and sealed, forgotten and packed away in a cardboard box, officials said."

http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-smallpox...

Yeah, so that's a bit scarier. Lyophilized samples are fairly shelf-stable. There's a much better chance they'd be infectious.

It's pretty unlikely that it would be communicable after such a long period without being specifically preserved under controlled conditions.

Live viral vaccines are typically shipped in a preservative and kept on dry ice during transit after which they are kept in a freezer until immediately before administration. This is one of the reasons it's so difficult to vaccinate large swaths of underdeveloped areas.

I can't imagine a vial in a closet could maintain a culture 'on accident' for more than a few months.

Can anyone comment on how bad it would be if this sample were viable and exposed to a populated area?

People are only infectious after the rash appears, and remain infectious for about 2 weeks. Transmission usually requires prolonged face-to-face contact with an infected person. Prior to the rash appearing, the infected person will feel lethargic and ill, and will likely take to bed.

So if there were a potent enough exposure event, it would be fairly easy to recognize and contain. Smallpox wouldn't make a very effective biological weapon (except for psychological effect).

How are virus samples such as these usually destroyed? Heat? Chemicals?

Autoclave.

Which uses heat.

"eradicated"

in the sense that no human is currently infected with smallpox. The virus itself is kinda resistant. It notably resists freezing, so it is very possible that the virus survived in the permafrost.

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