Document Type
Review Essay
Abstract
[First paragraph]
The world is free from the variola virus, more commonly known to us as the virus responsible for smallpox -- or at least it is almost free from it. Since the World Health Organization's (WHO) successful eradication campaign ended officially on December 9, 1979, smallpox no longer exists in its natural state, yet it does remain in securely isolated freezers in two locations: the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention facility in Atlanta, Georgia, and the Russian State Research Center of Virology and Biotechnology near Novosibirsk. In Smallpox: The Fight to Eradicate a Global Scourge, David Koplow examines the controversy surrounding the fate of these samples of smallpox. He weighs arguments by those who support the destruction of the last stockpiles of this virus against those who urge us to continue to securely preserve these stockpiles indefinitely. As a professor of law at Georgetown University and former Deputy General for International Affairs at the U.S. Department of Defense during the Clinton administration, Koplow helps readers understand this important decision based on the scientific and social history of the virus as well as the debate that surrounds this decision. He provides readers with sufficient information to formulate their own opinions about what should be the ultimate fate of the virus.
Repository Citation
Donovan, Lisa, and David A. Sapp. "On David Koplow's Smallpox: The Fight to Eradicate a Global Scourge." Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture vol. 3, no. 3, 2003, pp. 1–4. https://digitalcommons.odu.edu/reconstruction/vol3/iss3/13
Included in
History of Science, Technology, and Medicine Commons, Public Health Commons, Virus Diseases Commons