Scholars have long discredited the myth that Elizabeth spent her life encased in lead-white makeup, and, contra Dobson, she survived smallpox without marks.
As a precautionary measure, America's government is planning to stockpile 300m doses of smallpox vaccine: enough for every American citizen.However, using biological or chemical weapons as agents of mass destruction still looks very difficult.
American generals trot out a grisly list of chemical and biological weapons at the regime's disposal, spanning much of the alphabet: anthrax, botulism, cholera, haemorrhagic fever, nerve agents, plague, smallpox, typhoid and yellow fever.
Some emergency officials admit that they have little hope of helping people infected with a nerve agent like sarin, or a disease like smallpox, and that their plans focus on ensuring that those infected are isolated from the rest of the population rather than treated.
The World Health Organisation holds emergency stocks of smallpox vaccine in the Netherlands, but it is far from clear that there is enough to treat the victims of a major outbreak in Europe.Since September 11th, America has devoted far more resources to preparations for a massive terrorist attack than the EU has, but even America's security systems are far from watertight.
In the healthy, a vaccinia infection is largely harmless and merely confers immunity to smallpox.
They found a dramatic surge in monkeypox a disease which, though not as bad as smallpox, kills up to 10% of those it infects.The researchers selected central Congo partly because the last comprehensive study of monkeypox, carried out between 1981 and 1986, covered the area well.
The "government" could not isolate victims because smallpox has an incubation period of up to 14 days, during which carriers are infectious.
Ken Alibek, the former deputy head of the Soviet Union's germ-warfare programme (who defected to America in 1992), says that if a terrorist could pick one biological weapon for use against America, it would probably be smallpox or the plague.
But many doctors may not be able to identify a smallpox victim, much less an Ebola-virus or plague victim.
Many are impossible to treat or defend against with existing drugs; some cannot be detected with existing diagnostic tests.Many new drugs will be required just to tackle smallpox, which is only one of many biological or chemical weapons that might be unleashed.
