Smallpox?
Tim May
tcmay at got.net
Wed Sep 26 23:46:21 PDT 2001
On Wednesday, September 26, 2001, at 11:29 PM, 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. 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).
Better hurry! The criminals in Washington are about to make mere
_possession_ of biologicals like this illegal. Heretofore, it was
illegal to possess biologicals intended for weapons use, but soon it
will be a felony to merely possess broad classes of biologicals.
(Of course, the lab I worked in had Hepatitus C being cultured. All it
takes is a permission slip from Big Bro and your lab can militarize
smallpox!)
--Tim May, hurriedly dumping his biologicals in the nearby streams to
get rid of them
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