| Add gain of function / deliberate bio-terrorism in there as well. Feb 1992 - a Soviet defector revealed to Western intelligence that he had overseen an extensive, illegal programme to develop smallpox into a highly effective biological weapon: > Ken Alibek believes that, following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, unemployed or badly-paid scientists are likely to have sold samples of smallpox clandestinely and gone to work in rogue states engaged in illicit biological weapons development. https://www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwars/coldwar/pox_weapon_0... June 1998 - The WHO recommends that all smallpox samples should be destroyed
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJM199808203390811 Feb 2002 - WHO says that Russia and US can keep their smallpox samples
https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2002/02/wide-ran... Nov 2002 - CIA claims that Russia, France, Iraq and North Korea have "secret" stashes of small pox (erm you already know Russia has them, that's not a secret)
https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2002/11/cia-beli... Sep 2019 - Explosion and fire break out at Russian lab known for housing deadly smallpox virus
https://www.cnn.com/2019/09/17/health/russia-lab-explosion-s...
https://www.livescience.com/russia-lab-stores-smallpox-explo... |