14 DAY TRIAL // The World Health Organization is a tad indecisive these day. Long story short, it feels that holding on to the world's remaining smallpox stocks might be a bad move, but it simply cannot bring itself together to destroy them.
Thus, Nature tells us that, whereas one of the Organization's advisory committees on smallpox is convinced that these stocks must be destroyed without delay, the other one says that they should be kept for research purposes.
What it all boils down to is this: is it wiser to hold on to these stocks to further study the virus for the benefit of public health and risk an accidental release, or does it make more sense to obliterate them and move on?
Since these two advisory committees aren't enough to help the World Health Organization make its decision, it has been agreed upon that a new advisory committee should be formed and asked to deliver a third opinion.
Simply put, it might be a while until the World Health Organization finally makes up its mind about the smallpox stocks held at US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Georgia, and the Russian State Research Center of Virology and Biotechnology in Koltsovo, near Novosibirsk.