U.S. to hold onto smallpox stockpiles

By Major Garrett
CNN White House Correspondent

CRAWFORD, Texas (CNN) -- The Bush administration will retain U.S. stockpiles of the smallpox virus for continued research to deal with a potential attack of a new, weaponized form of the virus, CNN has confirmed.

The virus stockpile is under the control of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and kept at an undisclosed location.

The administration's move reverses a course set two decades ago to eradicate the smallpox virus. The official said the threat of bio-terrorism requires the country to retain the virus stockpiles to prepare for a potential smallpox attack.

"This move is a recognition that it's a different climate, a different world," the official said. "Some country could be glad that we have this virus. As you weaponize this stuff, we may have to develop new vaccines to deal with it."

The U.S. and Russia have the only known and confirmed stocks of the smallpox virus. But the official said there are concerns that some of Russia's stocks "somehow got loose" and may have fallen into the hands of Iraq, North Korea or a terrorist group such as Al Qaeda.

The U.S. currently has 15.4 million doses of smallpox vaccine and is doing experimental trials to divide the powerful vaccine by a factor of five -- immediately boosting available stocks to 77 million. President Bush has set a goal of creating 300 million vaccines by the end of 2002.

The official said the administration has been alerting allies to the change in policy and has encountered very little resistance.

"Many of our allies thought we were going to go down this route," the official said. "We have not gotten any blow back from our allies. We need to keep the virus to improve on current smallpox vaccines. That research will be on-going."

The Clinton administration had let it be known it would support a move to eradicate the U.S. virus stockpiles in 2002. The U.S. stopped vaccinating for smallpox in 1972.