Prior to September 11, plans were made to eliminate all stocks of smallpox within the next several years, thus making the virus the first species purposely eliminated from this planet.

Despite the eradication of smallpox as a disease, could the virus return? The virus’s only natural host is man; no lower animals are susceptible. Since the virus does not linger in the form of a persistent infection, it is amenable to permanent eradication—that is to say, removal from the world. But because the virus no longer circulates in any community, the numbers of never-vaccinated or never-infected susceptible individuals increases continually. Further, complete or efficient immunity of those previously vaccinated is believed to wane in ten to twenty years. Consequently, the pool of highly susceptible individuals is expanding enormously...

In the last few years, some countries and individuals with hidden stores of smallpox viruses have actually chosen to develop more dangerous varieties by inserting materials alongside its genes. For example, the Soviet Biologic-Weapons Program near Novosibirsk in western Siberia continued such work engineering a component of Ebola virus into the smallpox virus, despite attempts from Gorbachev to curtail it. With the breakup of the Soviet Union, government-funded research decreased dramatically, and scientists working in biowarfare programs often found themselves without jobs. Some went abroad looking for employment by the highest bidder. Several emigrated to the United States or Great Britain as consultants in the defense against such biological weapons, even as the Offensive Biological Weapons Program was discontinued in the United States during the Nixon presidency. Others, perhaps mercenary biologists, have simply disappeared from Russia. One can only guess

But because of that threat, several specialists who earlier led the fight to remove smallpox from our planet and destroy the virus as a species have recently advised that funds be earmarked to stockpile vaccines against smallpox and other pathogens and to store the deadly virus in American and Russian designated laboratories. The Clinton administration agreed in late 1998 to request $300 million for this purpose.

The last natural case of smallpox occurred in 1977 in Somalia at a time when many countries had already discontinued routine vaccination. However, in 1978, a photographer working at the University of Birmingham, England, became infected and died. Supposedly, the source of infection was a secure laboratory for smallpox research located a considerable distance from the room in which the photographer worked. This lethal episode emphasizes the danger of any viable smallpox virus during the posteradication era. As a result of that accident, all strains of smallpox stored in laboratories were supposedly destroyed or transferred to depositories at the CDC in Atlanta or the Research Institute for Viral Preparations in Moscow. The World Health Organization Ad Hoc Committee established to deal with this issue recommended in 1986 and 1994 that all remaining smallpox stocks in Atlanta and Moscow be destroyed if no serious objections were received from the international health community and that vaccination to protect military personnel be terminated. Despite the passage of years, neither recommendation has been implemented.

"The possibility was raised that smallpox in the hands of evildoers will resurface to be seen once again by practitioners of medicine. If smallpox should ever reappear, then potentially everyone on earth may be in danger. Since the time that vaccination was stopped, over 50 percent of the current population in the USA, Europe, and the world have never received the smallpox vaccine. Every year that number grows."