<story><title>Polio is on the brink of eradication</title><url>https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-03602-5</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>naravara</author><text>Someday soon we’ll just be able to sequence its genome and reconstruct it without needing to keep samples alive (and no longer have the risk with all the maintenance and security protocols that will entail).&lt;p&gt;Of course however we store that genomic code had better be on physical media in a sealed vault that isn’t even within spitting distance of anything with an internet connection.</text></item><item><author>ls612</author><text>Ostensibly this serves a purpose beyond the MAD incentive, having stocks of the virus on hand makes manufacturing the old style smallpox vaccine easier should the need ever arise in the future. As we saw with monkeypox last year there is much more limited capacity for more modern pox vaccines due to the more advanced manufacturing process and limited demand.</text></item><item><author>nolok</author><text>Don&amp;#x27;t need to wonder, the US and Russian (Soviet at the time) have made it public that they keep samples of smallpox.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Smallpox_virus_retention_debate&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Smallpox_virus_retention_debat...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item><item><author>ChrisMarshallNY</author><text>&lt;i&gt;&amp;gt; Only one human disease has so far been declared eradicated: smallpox&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;I was reading a post by someone, a few years ago, lamenting that we had “killed” a virus.&lt;p&gt;I am not 100% sure they were being serious, but they gave every indication that they were.&lt;p&gt;In any case, I’m sure that some bioweapons lab, somewhere (like, maybe, in Frederick, MD) has samples of the virus, “just in case it comes back.”</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>vgel</author><text>Oh, we already sequenced it awhile back. As for physical media, that&amp;#x27;s not exactly what happened... &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov&amp;#x2F;nuccore&amp;#x2F;NC_001611.1?report=fasta&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov&amp;#x2F;nuccore&amp;#x2F;NC_001611.1?report=fast...&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>Polio is on the brink of eradication</title><url>https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-03602-5</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>naravara</author><text>Someday soon we’ll just be able to sequence its genome and reconstruct it without needing to keep samples alive (and no longer have the risk with all the maintenance and security protocols that will entail).&lt;p&gt;Of course however we store that genomic code had better be on physical media in a sealed vault that isn’t even within spitting distance of anything with an internet connection.</text></item><item><author>ls612</author><text>Ostensibly this serves a purpose beyond the MAD incentive, having stocks of the virus on hand makes manufacturing the old style smallpox vaccine easier should the need ever arise in the future. As we saw with monkeypox last year there is much more limited capacity for more modern pox vaccines due to the more advanced manufacturing process and limited demand.</text></item><item><author>nolok</author><text>Don&amp;#x27;t need to wonder, the US and Russian (Soviet at the time) have made it public that they keep samples of smallpox.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Smallpox_virus_retention_debate&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Smallpox_virus_retention_debat...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item><item><author>ChrisMarshallNY</author><text>&lt;i&gt;&amp;gt; Only one human disease has so far been declared eradicated: smallpox&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;I was reading a post by someone, a few years ago, lamenting that we had “killed” a virus.&lt;p&gt;I am not 100% sure they were being serious, but they gave every indication that they were.&lt;p&gt;In any case, I’m sure that some bioweapons lab, somewhere (like, maybe, in Frederick, MD) has samples of the virus, “just in case it comes back.”</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Gare</author><text>&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;thebulletin.org&amp;#x2F;2020&amp;#x2F;02&amp;#x2F;a-biotech-firm-made-a-smallpox-like-virus-on-purpose-nobody-seems-to-care&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;thebulletin.org&amp;#x2F;2020&amp;#x2F;02&amp;#x2F;a-biotech-firm-made-a-smallp...&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>