The Brandeis Student Health Initiative Club hosted a discussion on smallpox Wednesday night in the Rappaporte Treasure Hall in Goldfarb Library. Two guest speakers, Prof. Susan Lovett (BIOL) and Prof. Gregory Petsko (CHEM), spoke about the past, present and future of the smallpox problem. After a brief, 15-minute screening of an old episode of "ER" that involved a smallpox breakout in the emergency room, Lovett and Petsko took the stage and discussed what smallpox actually is and does and how one can recognize it.

Smallpox has been used as a weapon of war for centuries, according to Lovett. It has been documented as being used as early as the Crusades, making it the first known biological weapon. The English used it against the Native Americans when they came to America, she said.

Lovett said it would be difficult to make large batches of the smallpox virus and explained why. "Smallpox is one of those viruses that needs a human host to survive. It is species-specific so it cannot be grown in other animals that also all have their own form of the smallpox virus. Some examples would be cowpox, monkey pox and raccoon pox," she said.

Fortunately, the spread of smallpox as an epidemic is not something Petsko said he believes will happen. "Anything we can think up, somebody else can think up. At the present, we know at least one government has tried to make (smallpox) more deadly -- Russia," he said.

He also said that while high technology is still needed to make smallpox a more virulent virus, that technology is becoming more and more accessible. He said he does not believe that it will be used as a terrorist weapon by Al Qaeda, though, commenting that they are not a very "technological" group.

Petsko said he also knows a lot about the government plans for what to do if there is a smallpox attack. "A vaccination program began a few days ago and it is set to work in two stages: Level 1 will vaccinate approximately 50,000 people, those being emergency medical doctors, nurses, staff, and technicians. Level 2 will be to vaccinate approximately one-half million to 1 million people, mostly the major powers such as government officials and the like, obviously excluding university faculty," he said.

According to Lovett, the smallpox vaccination is not a particularly safe one. The vaccination is done with a live virus that makes it possible for people to become ill and even die. Lovett and Petsko, however, told the audience not to worry, adding that it is much easier to set off a bomb to kill someone than to send out a virus that takes time to kill people.

The smallpox vaccination is voluntary. The government is planning on spending nearly $1.6 billion on the Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, to conduct a lot more research on the smallpox virus, as well as other potential biological weapons, and close to $20 billion to help fund research over the country, according to Petsko.

As the discussion was brought to a close, Petsko reminded the audience that all of what was discussed is very unlikely. "Very few people in the world are making the vaccine to begin with, and even fewer are making the actual virus," he said.

"There just are not a lot of people involved, but those few that are involved with making the virus are a shame to science.