Smallpox
as a Weapon
Bioengineering
In September
of 2000, at the thirteenth International Poxvirus Symposium, a
group of Australian scientist posted their work on infecting mice
with an engineered mousepox that was supposed to make the mice
sterile. Instead the engineered mousepox had wiped out the mice. (15:128) The
mice were naturally resistant to mousepox, and some of them had
also been vaccinated. The engineered virus had wiped out 100% of
the naturally resistant mice and 60% of the immunized mice. The
Australian scientists had added a single foreign gene, the mouse
IL-4 gene, to natural mousepox virus.
The mouse IL-4
gene produces a protein called interleukin-4, a cytokine that acts
as a signal in the immune system. By putting a mouse gene into
natural mousepox, the researchers had created a superlethal, vaccine-resistant
pox of mice. The study suggested a paralleled in that engineered
IL-4 smallpox might be able to break through people’s immunity,
but not if the vaccinations were recent, perhaps only weeks old. (15:227)
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