Page:Interim Staff Report on Investigation into Risky MPXV Experiment at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.pdf/12



MPXV, along with smallpox and other orthopoxviruses, also poses a signiﬁcant threat to the United States and the world due to its potential for weaponization, accidental release, and the vulnerability of populations which stopped routinely vaccinating against smallpox in the 1970s. The former Soviet Union extensively researched MPXV and used it as a model to weaponize smallpox, demonstrating the plausibility of bad actors using MPXV as a biological weapon. The biological weapons potential of MPXV and other orthopoxviruses has only increased since the end of the Cold War. On March 26, 2024, the National