-- On 27 Sep 2001, at 6:29, Dr. Evil wrote:
I was thinking about this some more, and I wonder if cowpox still exists in the wild. I know that all livestock in developed countries receive certain vaccinations, and it would be logical for cowpox/smallpox to be one of them. Hmm, this also makes me wonder: if there is veterinary vaccine for *pox, could it be safe and effective for humans, or easily adapted for human use? Trivia buffs: The word vaccine comes from the Latin word vacca, meaning cow (vache in French).
The original vaccine was based on cowpox, the nearest relative of small pox. However it was insufficiently effective and reliable, and so was furtively replaced by a weakened strain of smallpox, which was grown on cows. The sellers of the vaccine continued to represent it as cowpox, but it was in fact a mild variant of the real thing, smallpox. One reason for ending routine smallpox vaccinations was fear that the vaccine might re-evolve virulence. --digsig James A. Donald 6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG kXH6aRJgcm74NYwHq6YHdgl8mhU4ortJYmss1BEZ 4enHGKKT46sx5PJiNR4+3w/9tMGBllosKm+Gur1im