Smallpox?

[Harmon Seaver]

"Dr. Evil" wrote:

> > I would not count on the 18th century cowpox/smallpox coupling to be
> > valid today - viruses evolve, and that's not counting deliberate
> > manipulations intended to produce more virulent strains.
>
> 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.

    That's not true -- where the heck did you ever get the idea that "all
livestock in developed countries receive certain vaccinations"??? I had
livestock for years and never vaccinated them for anything, and I've know
a lot of farmers who didn't either. We used to run a dog team, sometimes
had 14-15 dogs which didn't even get rabies shots.
     Besides all the non-vaccinated domestic livestock, what about all
the wild animals that could carry cowpox. Even cats and rats can carry
it.

http://www.stanford.edu/~jaguayo/cowpox_virus.html

--
Harmon Seaver, MLIS
CyberShamanix
Work 920-203-9633
Home 920-233-5820
hseaver at cybershamanix.com
http://www.cybershamanix.com/resume.html