Do you think that we should save the last specimens of SmallPox for the good of humankind???

Question: Do you think that we should save the last specimens of SmallPox for the good of humankind???
- Keywords:
  disease,
  human,
  smallpox,
  specimen,
  virus
Asked by heggartkei to Tim, Suzi, Rachael on 14 Jun 2011.
- Suzi Gage answered on 14 Jun 2011:
  
  @heggartkei
  Thanks for your question! This is a hard one to answer, as I don’t know much about infectious diseases, although I’m learning a bit about them from colleagues at the moment.
  
  I would say my gut instinct would be yes we should keep them, as a better understanding of how diseases are spread can help us to treat new diseases in the future. But they would have to be kept very safe so they could never be used for political reasons (sounds like the plot of a movie!)
  
  Also, we can’t be sure it’s definitely eradicated from EVERYWHERE in the world, so better to keep it to make antidotes than be sorry if there’s suddenly an outbreak again.
  
  Hope this answers your question 🙂

Question: Do you think that we should save the last specimens of SmallPox for the good of humankind???