Something silly and sort of scary for a Sunday morning.

[seanan_mcguire]

I (as Mira Grant) was asking to put together a list of potential pandemics for Buzzfeed. I like anything that gives me an excuse to wallow in delicious virology, so...

http://www.buzzfeed.com/orbitbooks/10-epidemics-waiting-to-happen-that-you-wonat-e-16hk

Enjoy, and remember, medical science is more interested in keeping you alive than it is in cutting you up and reassembling you as a shambling horror.

Most of the time.

Comments

Reassuring...I think.

[erik]

"medical science is more interested in keeping you alive than it is in cutting you up and reassembling you as a shambling horror."

"more interested" implies that "cutting you up and reassembling you as a shambling horror" is still also on the list, though. Just further down.

Hm.

RE: Reassuring...I think.

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

Well, yes.

[sarahfish.livejournal.com]

I see polio is on that list. You may be interested in this article: Vaccine-Resistant Polio Discovered

Also a nit-pick, but Black Death was (is?) caused by Yersinia pestis -- a bacterium, not a virus. Though VIRUSES ARE CLEARLY SUPERIOR, DON'T GET ME WRONG. Not biased because I study viruses. Nope. Not at all.

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

Except that if you read the list, you will see that I subscribe to the school of thought which believes that the bubonic plague is NOT the Black Death, and that the Black Death was caused by a yet-unidentified hemorrhagic fever.

[sarahfish.livejournal.com]

Ooh, I see. Sorry, got confused :/

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

It's okay!

I understand why y. pestis keeps getting fingered, but I really feel like we need to look further.

[sylphon.livejournal.com]

Sadly I read this whole response and most of the article with your song "The Black Death" running in my head :-)

[anne_d]

Well, that certainly made my morning.

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

Yay!

[pbrim.livejournal.com]

Um, Yay for being old enough to have had a smallpox vaccination? But I wonder it that's one of those that wears off without boosters.

And I've been double vaccinated for Polio. I changed school districts during the school year and had to eat those sickly sweet sugar cubes twice, because no-one believed I had done it before.

I also remember TB tests being given to everyone in the school every couple of years as just routine, as well as lining up all the kids in school for polio or smallpox vaccine, or routine vision tests and scoliosis checks. We don't seem to take epidemics (or public health in general) as seriously as we used to, maybe because we haven't had one is quite a while.

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

That's going to change.

[devifemme.livejournal.com]

"That's going to change" sure sounded ominous! (On the other hand, I was amused by your "cutting people up" line.)

I'm with the commenter who had the classic smallpox, TB, etc. shots in school. BTW no smallpox booster needed because, inter alia, it's not a threat anywhere (at least currently).

Hugz (not around Ebola victims!),
Justine

[vixyish.livejournal.com]

Oh wow, I'd forgotten. I remember the scoliosis and the hearing and vision checks in school. It never occurred to me when I was student teaching in elementary schools in 1998-2000 that nobody was doing them anymore.

[marycatelli]

My mother remembered that my older sister was old enough to have been, and my younger not old enough. Me, she waffled about until after the day I noticed something in the bathroom mirror, and showed it to her the next time: "Say, isn't this a smallpox vaccination scar?"

[quietchildae.livejournal.com]

This made me very happy.

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

Good!

[archangelbeth]

*sigh*

My sire was an anti-vaccine nut, who got a doctor to go along with this and write a "no, really, it was medically necessary not to vaccinate her; let her go to college anyway" letter. (This letter also prevented me from voluntarily getting vaccinated for measles when there was an outbreak at said university; I didn't catch it.)

I eventually did get vaccinated -- as I wished to have a kid and, y'know, MMR vaccines are kind of useful there, and why not do the rest while I'm at it? -- but apparently the doctor contacted... the CDC? And they said, "Eh, don't bother with the polio vaccine; just make sure her kid gets a killed-dose vaccine and not a live one."

I think they didn't polio-vaccinate my kid, either, it turned out?

So I will just be sitting over here making the D: face!

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

...eep.

[archangelbeth]

Well, maybe when they get a vaccine for the mutant version, I can get the upgraded version! #LookingOnTheBrightSide

[sirfox.livejournal.com]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vozrozhdeniya_Island I had a professor tell me about this place, shared the story of some researchers on a boat nearby the island being exposed to and contracting weaponized smallpox from the soviet outdoor bioweapons lab testing going on there. Best part is, the island is now a peninsula due to draining of the aral sea. Wildlife can and does trod across it now to and from the mainland. oops.

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

Wow.

Whoops.

[acelightning.livejournal.com]

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

Needles are scary, smallpox is scarier.

[acelightning.livejournal.com]

[dragonsally.livejournal.com]

Wonderful list - and is it weird that I'm proud that 2 are Aussie?

Edit to add.

My dad's cousin caught polio as a kid in the 30's. Had permanent disabilities from it and taught our whole family how valuable vaccinations are.

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

...ouch.

[geekhyena.livejournal.com]

Henipaviruses are fascinating! Also, good news for Tazzie devils - the Taronga Zoo and other zoos are collaborating to establish "lifeboat" populations free of the virus, just in case the species ever goes extinct in the wild. I got to see some of the "lifeboat tazzies" when I was at Taronga and also at Featherdale - they're really doing a lot of research into it and trying to stop it, or at least minimize its spread. The keeper I spoke to at Taronga was super excited/knowledgeable about it.

Re poxviruses...I kind of wish I could get a smallpox vaccination, just for peace of mind. I have a pockmark on my face from when I had chicken pox (caught it 2 days before I was supposed to get the vaccine), and that was hellish enough as a kid. I had a pretty bad case, all because someone decided to let their infectious kid go to a birthday party, on the grounds of 'it's not that harmful if someone catches it'. I was so sick I was 2 months late starting Kindergarten. And chicken pox is a walk in the park compared to its cousins....

[catnip13.livejournal.com]

Yeah, not even the military vaccinates for small pox anymore - they haven't since the mid 80s. The only people that get that vaccine now are people that actually work in labs where there's a chance of contact.

[geekhyena.livejournal.com]

I know. My OCD plus knowing people who can't be vaccinated because of medical reasons (my sister doesn't have ANY noticeable antibodies a year after she gets a vaccine, so she has to get revaccinated for everything every year, plus she's immunocompromised), makes me want to make 'vaccinate everyone for everything, just in case' public policy. Not something that's ever going to happen, but it does explain why I get ragey when my coworker says she never gets the flu shot because she's healthy and never gets the flu -__-

[nurseiris.livejournal.com]

Most US nurses are required to have the vaccine as well, sadly this is not true for ALL healthcare workers!
Thank you for making my dreams just a little bit scarier Seanan, and reminding me why I went into the health sciences in the first place. It is at least partly your fault (I listened to The Black Death at least once a day when applying for schools.) :-)

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

I am glad they're working to save the Tazzies.

[momentsplinter.livejournal.com]

WHY WOULD YOU PUT THE THOUGHT OF DEVIL FACIAL TUMOUR DISEASE SPREADING TO HUMANS INTO MY HEAD. WHY WOULD YOU DO THIS? Maybe it'll just wipe out Tasmania and the rest of us will be safe?

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

Because I like the share.

What about....

[lisa kueltzo (from livejournal.com)]

chikungunya? It's spread through the Caribbean, and has hit Florida this fall. Mosquitos will destroy the world!

RE: What about....

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

I only got ten.

[liddle-oldman.livejournal.com]

I, personally, am most waiting for someone to release weaponized smallpox. As in trying not to pee my pants waiting for it.

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that's going to be ugly.