(S.D. Wells) Mousepox is a disease caused by a virus that attacks soft tissues of mice, including an acute form of infection that bears a high mortality rate. The disease is a relative of the smallpox virus and has been carefully researched and analyzed by scientists in Australia, who recognized the virus as being a mouse-specific virus of the mammalian pox viruses. It was never a problem in the United States, until the US government funded a scientist in 2003 to deliberately create a highly lethal form of mousepox called modified mousepox, using genetic modification (GM), also known as genetic engineering.