CIA Investigates Allegations that Soviet Scientist Transferred Virus to Iraq (SMALL POX)

ABC News ^ | 12/04/02

[The Magical Mischief Tour]

Dec. 3 — American intelligence officials are investigating whether a Russian scientist transferred a particularly lethal strain of smallpox to the government of Iraq in the 1990s, ABCNEWS has confirmed.

As first reported in The New York Times, the allegations involve a smallpox strain stored at the Research Institute for Viral Preparations in Moscow. Intelligence officials say an informant has reported the institute's late director, virologist Nelja Maltseva, moved the smallpox on a trip to Iraq in 1990.

"Maltseva had access to the entire collection, in all probability, of the Russian strains of small pox — at least a hundred," said Dr. Alan Selikoff, a scientist at the Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, N.M.

The collection includes an especially deadly strain of smallpox involved in an outbreak 30 years ago in the remote Kazakhstan city of Aralsk.

Selikoff, who first revealed the Aralsk outbreak earlier this year, says it's possible that strain is also resistant to known vaccines. Even if a vaccine were available, it would not stop the spread of this rare strain of smallpox, but Selikoff said it would help limit the number of deaths.

[anatolfz]

Oh, you're welcome!

Seriosuly, I don't know what effect this has on anything. I think bioweapons are really pretty useless. And there are two uncles in my Ma's family that got gassed in WWI, so I don't just toss that out as nothing. But what good are they in a fight? I think they're mostly useful as a threat.