PHM-Exch> DON¹T OPEN PANDORA¹S BOX OF GENETIC ENGINEERING OF SMALLPOX

Thu May 15 03:27:14 PDT 2014

Dear Friends, 

Below is a sign-on petition on the issue of Smallpox.

Over the years, the US has found numerous reasons to avoid a WHA resolution
calling for the destruction of the remaining variola stocks. These remaining
stocks are only held at WHO repositories in the US and Russia. All public
health research around the stocks have completed and WHO's own public health
experts have concluded that no public health reason remains for the
continued retention of the virus.

However now US is raising concerns about new threats from smallpox as a
result of biotechnology and synthetic biology. Essentially the US is looking
for another reason not only to retain the virus but possibly more
dangerously to expand research on the variola virus.

The letter below calls on WHA to find the will to call for a destruction of
the smallpox virus stocks.

If you would like to support this letter, pls send the name of your
organisation and country to ssangeeta at myjaring.net or ssangeetash at gmail.com
before 19th May. 

Regards
Sangeeta Shashikant
Third World Network
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DON¹T OPEN PANDORA¹S BOX OF GENETIC ENGINEERING OF SMALLPOX

We, the undersigned civil society organizations from around the world, call
on the 67th World Health Assembly (WHA) not to open the door to the genetic
engineering of variola (smallpox) virus.

Instead, the WHA should unequivocally terminate research with smallpox virus
and fix a prompt and irrevocable date for the destruction of the virus
stocks, held only at WHO repositories in the United States and Russia.

By any reasonable measure, all elements of the WHA¹s authorized research
programme requiring smallpox virus are complete. WHO¹s own public health
experts have concluded that no public health reason remains for the
continued retention of the virus.

With the smallpox research programme effectively completed, the United
States is now proffering the idea that ³new threats² from smallpox may
exist. These it says relate to biotechnology and, more specifically,
synthetic biology. By promoting this discussion, the proponents of retention
are seeking political pretext on which to keep the virus.

Linking retention of smallpox virus to vague biotechnology-related ³threats²
may open the Pandora's Box of genetic engineering of smallpox. A nightmare
scenario of new proposals being put forward to manipulate the virus to
unsafe ends, including experiments to synthesize large pieces of it, or
whole virus, as a perverted ³proof of principle², will likely ensue.

While this may sound far-fetched, we need only look at how US biodefense
researchers genetically engineered anthrax to make it antibiotic resistant
(and hence more dangerous) or how Dutch and US researchers have deliberately
created new strains of potentially pandemic influenza.

In fact, the US first proposed to genetically engineer smallpox a decade
ago. Remarkably, the WHO committee overseeing research approved. It was only
through civil society campaigning and a group of countries led by Africa
that the decision was overturned and WHO oversight  at least temporarily 
tightened.

WHO has stringent existing rules on synthesis, possession, and use of
smallpox DNA that can effectively control any biotechnology-related risk.
These rules strictly forbid synthesizing full-length variola virus genomes
or infectious variola viruses from smaller DNA fragments and genetic
engineering of the virus.

Those rules must not be weakened, and vague assertions of ³new threats²
related to biotechnology cannot be allowed to provide any new pretext upon
which the US and Russia can base refusal to destroy the virus stocks.

Nearly a quarter century ago, in 1986, the WHO¹s experts first recommended
that the viruses be destroyed, so that the risk of a future outbreak would
be radically reduced.

Continued retention of smallpox virus samples serves no public health
purpose, and the possibility of escape, amplified by the risks of
unnecessary research, threatens all countries. Indeed, the last recorded
smallpox case, in 1978, was the result of a laboratory accident.

Destroying smallpox virus stocks is not only the last step in the
achievement of eradicating the disease; it is the single most important
thing that the international community can do to ensure that it never
appears again. By making possession of the virus a crime against humanity,
any future attempt to recreate the virus through biotechnology methods would
meet international condemnation and sanction.

The time has come for these stocks to be destroyed once and for all. This
can only be accomplished through the will of the upcoming World Health
Assembly (19th-24th May 2014).

Endorsed by:

1.    Abibiman Foundation, Ghana
2.     All India Drug Action Network, India
3.     Alliance for Humane Biotechnology, USA
4.    Alliance Sud, Switzerland
5.    Asociacion Ambiente y Sociedad, Colombia
6.    Beyond Copenhagen Collective, India
7.    Centro Ecológico, Brazil
8.     COECOCEIBA  Friends of the Earth Costa Rica
9.    Consumers¹ Association of Penang (CAP), Malaysia
10.  Cooperation for Peace and Development (CPD), Afghanistan
11.  Corporate Europe Observatory
12. Desarrollo Media Ambiental Sustentable (ASDMAS), Peru
13.  Earth Open Source, UK
14.  ETC Group
15.  Friends of the Earth Australia
16.  Friends of the Earth International
17.  Friends of the Environment in Negros Oriental (FENOr)
18.  Gene Ethics, Australia
19.  GM Watch, UK
20.  Green Foundation, India
21.  Growth Partners Africa, Kenya
22.  Health of Mother Earth Foundation, Nigeria
23.  Human Genetics Alert, UK
24.  Initiative for Health & Equity in Society, India
25.  Institute of Science in Society, UK
26.  Instituto del Tercer Mundo, Uruguay
27. Kenya Biodiversity Network, Kenya
28.  Kenya Food Rights Alliance, Kenya
29.  MADGE Australia Inc.
30.  Malaysian Physicians for Social Responsibility
31. Nabodhara, Bangladesh
32.  Network for a GE Free Latin America (RALLT)
33.  Nourish Scotland
34.  Pesticide Action Network  Asia Pacific (PAN AP)
35.  RAPAL Uruguay
36.  Sahabat Alam Malaysia (SAM)  Friends of the Earth Malaysia
37. Scientists for Global Responsibility, UK
38. SHISUK, Bangladesh
39.  South Asian Dialogues on Ecological Democracy
40.  Testbiotech, Germany
41.  The Bioscience Resource Project, USA
42.  The Oakland Institute, USA
43.  The Safe Food Foundation, Australia
44.  Third World Network

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