Interesting fact of the day
May. 9th, 2011 10:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
unhappytriadBack in February, a student lab worker at the University of Illinois became the first person in the U.S. to be infected with cowpox. Further interesting details:
1. The student got the pox in a lab in which no one had been working with cowpox for FIVE YEARS.
2. The smallpox vaccination will protect you from cowpox. See # 3.
3. Cowpox is alive and well in the wild in Europe and Asia. This is potentially useful, since the original smallpox vaccination was actually infection with live cowpox (hence the word "vaccination" which roughly means "en-cowing"). Therefore if smallpox accidentally gets loose again, there's something readily available we can use to make vaccine.
1. The student got the pox in a lab in which no one had been working with cowpox for FIVE YEARS.
2. The smallpox vaccination will protect you from cowpox. See # 3.
3. Cowpox is alive and well in the wild in Europe and Asia. This is potentially useful, since the original smallpox vaccination was actually infection with live cowpox (hence the word "vaccination" which roughly means "en-cowing"). Therefore if smallpox accidentally gets loose again, there's something readily available we can use to make vaccine.
