The World Health Organization (WHO) declared eradication of the dreadful disease “smallpox” in 1980. Though the disease has died down, the causative virus “variola” has not, as it has been well preserved in two high security laboratories—one in USA and another in Russia. The debate on whether the remaining stocks of the smallpox virus should be destroyed or not is ongoing, and the World Health Assembly (WHA) in 2011 has decided to postpone the review on this debate to the 67th WHA in 2014. A short questionnaire-based inquiry was organized during a one-day stem cell meeting to explore the views of various health care and life science specialists especially students on this aspect. Among the 200 participants of the meeting, only 66 had answered the questionnaire. 60.6% of participants who responded to the questionnaire were for preserving the virus for future reference, while 36.4% of the participants were for destroying the virus considering the magnitude with which it killed millions. However, 3% of the respondents were not able to decide on any verdict. Therefore, this inquiry expresses the view that “what we cannot create, we do not have the right to destroy.”

Though the trend of competitiveness among students has been found to be declining recently, there are seldom reports analyzing the same among university students from biotechnology, life sciences, medicine, dentistry and veterinary sciences. The objective of the study was to analyze the trend of competitiveness of undergraduate and postgraduate students from a developing nation. This was done by a retrospective analysis of the data on participation of the students in a continuing health sciences education event that had both active knowledge-gaining (AKG) components such as quiz and passive knowledge-gaining components (PKG) such as plenary lectures as parts of the event conducted every year from 2006 to 2010 in that nation. The results showed a statistically significant linear trend in participation (p-value <0.0001) and a declining AKG event participation over the five years in a trend analytical comparison with PKG events' participation which remained relatively stable over the years indicating a declining spirit of competitiveness. Further analysis into this declining trend revealed several pitfalls in the current education system of that nation. The findings raise alarms calling for the need to implement steps to modify the current education system, improve the attitude of the students and encourage them to participate in AKG events thereby developing a strong and more courageous younger generation, which will be able to optimally contribute to the society.