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Editorial: New life for polio? / Scientists synthesize a once-feared virus

Friday, July 19, 2002

News that scientists have succeeded in creating a synthetic polio virus generates feelings of unease on several fronts. Even the scientific community is not of a single mind on whether the development is instructive or just dangerous.

The New York professor who led the three-year project asserts that the virus was generated with purely defensive measures in mind and to serve as a public warning that terrorists might be able to concoct biological weapons without first gaining access to the real thing.

Given that the project was funded by the Pentagon, through a $300,000 grant from the Defense Advanced Research Agency, this is a message that our government apparently wants widely understood as it continues the war against terrorism.

Another expert in biotechnology labeled the experiment a stunt, but J. Craig Venter, known for sequencing the human genome, was appalled. "I think it's inflammatory without scientific justification," he declared. "To purposely make a synthetic human pathogen is irresponsible."

Would the polio virus make a good biological weapon for terrorists? No, said several scientists polled by The New York Times. That's because polio is not as immediately virulent and contagious a disease as, say, smallpox. Fortunately, smallpox probably could not be replicated in the same manner for genetic reasons, but other viruses, such as HIV and hepatitis C, could be.

Polio once was a scourge of mankind, but mass immunization has nearly eradicated the disease. Fewer than 500 cases a year are recorded worldwide, according to the World Health Organization. But now, with the threat of a synthetically produced virus a reality, vaccination programs will have to be maintained indefinitely. The test-tube virus may be a wake-up call on terrorism, but it's also bad news to the public-health community around the globe.