BIOTERRORISM: New smallpox vaccine

The United States government has started stockpiling both a newer and safer version of smallpox vaccine. The vaccine, Denmark-based Bavarian Nordic's Imvamune, is made with modified vaccinia ankara. This is a much safer alternative to the cowpox vaccines that have been used for generations.
Company officials say the first shipments of the new and improved smallpox vaccine arrived in the U.S. Strategic National Stockpile last week, within hours of a World Health Organization ceremony marking eradication of the disease. This is widely regarded as one of the greatest public health achievements of all time. Of course with the threat of bioterrorism, and the fact that the virus still lives, there is still considerable risk to the public if enough of the vaccine isn't stockpiled.
For example, the virus lives in freezers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta and possibly in Russia, where Soviet scientists are believed to have created tons of weaponized smallpox. The breakup of the Soviet Union and the rise of global terrorism led the United States about ten years ago to begin stockpiling vaccine.
If Russia has smallpox; who else does? That's likely the larger question that no one is coming out and directly asking. Today, however, Randall Larsen, CEO of the non-profit Weapons of Mass Destruction Center, said that the national stockpile now contains 300 million doses of the vaccine.
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