Something silly and sort of scary for a Sunday morning.

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.

Well, that certainly made my morning.

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.

This made me very happy.

*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!

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.

I had the original smallpox vaccine, although it's been so long that I can't seem to find the scar. I got a few other shots when I was very small, but the only one I remember is DPT, and a few tetanus boosters. I got both kinds of polio vaccine - first an entire series of the injected form, then another entire series of the drop-of-syrup form, because they changed the age ranges when they changed the vaccine. I did not have the MMR vaccine, or the chicken pox vaccine, because they hadn't been invented yet; instead, I had actual measles and chicken pox (although I managed to escape the mumps). When my son was an infant, they gave me a dose of MMR vaccine at the same time he got his. I haven't had any of the other "basic" ones, because none of them had been invented yet when I was a child either. I've never had a flu shot, but now that Medicare pays for it, I might get one, along with the vaccines for pneumonia and shingles. I don't think I'll need any others; I've lived long enough to have been exposed to all sorts of random pathogens, without catching most of them. And I plan to continue to limit my foreign travels to places where it's safe to drink the water. (Did I mention that I'm terrified of needles?)

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.

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....

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.

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?

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