The following is excerpted from CDC recommendations

(Emphasis supplied; see CDC URL address below;)

"Studies investigating...pox viruses [e.g., molluscum or vaccinia*] indicate that iodine, an Environmental Protection Agency-registered surface agent, is effective...[against these viruses]".

Ed. note: Iodine has a several hundred year history of safe use on human skin. However plain iodine does not penetrate the barrier of the skin very well at all. Therefore plain iodine does little to treat molluscum warts on the skin since it cannot get through the outer layers to where the virus lives.The high potency tea tree oil in ZymaDerm penetrates into the skin carrying our unique form of iodine with it. In the deeper layers of the skin where the virus multiplies (replicates), this combination of organically bound iodine and tea tree oil results in a greatly multiplied activity against the molluscum virus.

*Molluscum is a pox virus closely related to vaccinia. Vaccinia virus is a weakened (attenuated) form of the small pox virus that was used to manufacture small pox vaccine.

CDC Page Last Modified: April 18, 2006
(http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dvrd/molluscum/swimming/swimming_recommendations.htm)

The CDC recommendations were in regard to treating surfaces that transmit pox viruses such as molluscum.