creating pathogenic viruses

While browsing this morning through my stack of files and folders in the basement I came across this cutting from the Winnipeg Free Press dated July 13th, 2002. The headline reads " Creation of polio virus stirs debate ". In the cutting there is a picture of Prof Arthur Schafer from the U. of Manitoba centre of of Professional and Applied Ethics
According to the article written by the Winnipeg Free Press reporter Alexandra Paul, scientists at the State University of New York in Stony Brook , not only created a polio virus from scratch, but they used it "... to infect, cripple, and kill mice ".
Although such an achievement could be ".... a useful step against terrorism " it could have more sinister effects.
i refer the reader to my blog on were I discuss the speculation journalists have made that some scientists may have used the same tools to create the AIDS virus and either inadvertently and/or deliberately introduced it into several regions of the African continent.