WHO Panel: Yeah, OK, Keep Your Smallpox

The US and Russia can and should keep their smallpox supplies, the World Health Organization’s executive board concluded yesterday. The WHO has been asked to consider setting a deadline for destroying the virus, the Wall Street Journal explains. But at a meeting in Geneva yesterday, the board agreed with the US and Russian argument that they needed to continue researching the virus and developing treatments in case of a bioterror attack. From here, the debate will move to the WHO’s decision-making body, the World Health Assembly. (More smallpox stories.)