re: #9 GeneJockey

I can EASILY imagine this happening.

Think about it - in the 1950s, everyone in the US was vaccinated, so smallpox - 30% fatal in unvaccinated populations - would hardly raise an eyebrow. Everyone in the lab was vaccinated, and I can tell you, folks used to be WAY less concerned about lab safety than they are now.

So, maybe a postdoc or other researcher is culturing variola, makes some vials to keep the stock on hand. Puts them someplace. Gets another job. Forgets they’re there when he packs. Next person doesn’t do anything with them. Moves the former employee’s stuff into a closet someplace. Then HE gets another job, and now there’ nobody who know whose stuff that was.

The institution changes hands, and NOBODY’S gonna go through every nook and cranny.

And here we are, 60 years later, >35 years after the last case of smallpox, nobody’s been vaccinated since then. And someone looks in the closet and reads “Variola” on a box and realizes what the vials contain.

It’s a plot by those nefarious Baby Boomers to wipe out the following generations!