The D’oh to End All D’ohs

Back in the late 90s at The American Prospect I edited an article and became interested in the somewhat obscure but high-stakes debate over whether to destroy the last stocks of the smallpox virus, which was finally eradicated in nature in the 1980. The Russians and the US both have remaining stockpiles, under intense technical and security protection at two laboratories, one in each country. So that’s where the debate still remained – except for the vials of smallpox virus in a cardboard box a government scientist found while cleaning out a storage closet near Washington last week.