Researchers continue to debate whether US President Abraham Lincoln was coming down with smallpox as he delivered his famous Gettysburg Address, and if he had been immunized.
As a deadly smallpox outbreak ravaged Boston, one of the city’s leaders advocated for a preventive measure he’d learned about from Onesimus, an enslaved man.
A review of a 2014 incident in which mystery vials of smallpox were found at the NIH reveals security weaknesses, but also concludes the response was appropriate.
Following recent high-profile safety lapses in government labs, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has placed a moratorium on movement of biological materials from BSL-3 and BSL-4 facilities.
Scientists urge the World Health Organization to delay destroying the last remaining laboratory stocks of live variola virus because there’s more research to be done.
The story of the US government’s efforts to stamp out smallpox in the early 20th century offers insights into the science and practice of mass vaccination.
In Chapter 5, "The Stable and the Laboratory," author Michael Willrich explores the burgeoning vaccine manufacture industry that ramped up to combat smallpox epidemics in turn-of-the-twentieth-century American cities.
The World Health Organization is remaining mum on the issue of maintaining laboratory stocks of the smallpox virus, which the US government wants to preserve for the next five years.
