The question is unnecessarily emotional and anthropomorphizes smallpox - smallpox hates that. The question is really "There is a threat contained in labs in the US and Russia. Should we eliminate it, or hold onto it for future research and as a backup for vaccinations in case of other, undeclared stocks?" This breaks down into a whole set of questions, I guess.<p>What is the probability of the virus escaping from the labs in Georgia and Siberia? What is the probability that there are undeclared stocks of the virus elsewhere? If the second is greater than the first, don't destroy the stocks because you may need them to recreate the vaccine. If the second is less than the first, by how much? And what is the consensus on risk appetite? How well can you ensure that the stocks really are destroyed if they are so ordered to be?<p>This should tell you the best answer based on safety.<p>The next set of questions relate to what can be learned from the current stocks. Is there an active research program? Is there a current list of things to learn, or are we just holding onto it 'in case'? Has there been a case that we were glad to have virus stocks that were previously held to be useless?<p>If there is no obvious gain from holding onto the stock for research and the most significant threat from the virus is accidental release, then destroy the stocks. Otherwise, hold onto them - you can't recreate the stocks from nothing yet and you can always destroy them later.<p>My gut tells me that we should hold onto them. I'm always loathe to throw opportunities away and that's really what these stocks represent.
The Soviet Union had tons of biological weapons, including smallpox, before, during and after the implementation of the Biological Weapons Convention treaty. People who worked in those laboratories and the associated germ warfare production facilities sometimes accidentally carried product home unwittingly, with predictable consequences.<p>Any hope for eradication is lost when somewhere, somehow, an as-yet-unopened bottle of bad stuff remains forgotten or hidden. And this is without considering bad intent.<p>So keep samples where you can get them quickly.
A much better essay arguing that smallpox be preserved: <a href="http://www.cdc.gov/eid/content/17/4/681.htm" rel="nofollow">http://www.cdc.gov/eid/content/17/4/681.htm</a>
Probably it's a good idea to get rid of any remaining smallpox samples, but to retain its DNA/RNA sequence for possible future study. The genomes for viruses are typically not very large. If you printed out HIV it's maybe a couple of sheets of A4 paper.
Isn't there way more deadly and virulent stuff locked up in labs all over the world, like ebola and anthrax and VX? And we don't know what medical discoveries smallpox might yield decades down the road. Let's not destroy anything.
It should be preserved. The reason why is that you will never be able to say with 100% certainty that the disease is eradicated. So should someone get a hold of smallpox we'll be able to begin making a vaccine much sooner than we could of if we had to get a new sample.
Earth could be invaded by aliens, someday, and find ourselves unable to overthrow them. We may find that they are not susceptible to any of our biological options, either. We may start wishing that we had something like small-pox to unleash on their home-world. Not something we'd want to do lightly, but if they assert themselves as our overlords, we may have no other choice.