Path: ...!weretis.net!feeder9.news.weretis.net!panix!.POSTED.panix2.panix.com!not-for-mail From: "Keith F. Lynch" Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.fandom,rec.arts.sf.science,rec.arts.sf.written Subject: Re: idiots walk among us Date: Sat, 8 Mar 2025 19:12:07 -0000 (UTC) Organization: United Individualist Message-ID: References: <0001HW.2D7BB48800F8D22B70000998A38F@news.supernews.com> Injection-Date: Sat, 8 Mar 2025 19:12:07 -0000 (UTC) Injection-Info: reader1.panix.com; posting-host="panix2.panix.com:166.84.1.2"; logging-data="9838"; mail-complaints-to="abuse@panix.com" X-Newsreader: trn 4.0-test77 (Sep 1, 2010) Bytes: 1945 Lines: 25 Mike Van Pelt wrote: > Nobody gets vaccinated against smallpox any more, since the virus > is extinct. In the wild. I grimly await some (long string of > weapons-grade expletives) to break that out of the freezer and > inflict it on the world again. That may not be the only way it can happen. At a book signing I asked James Watson if a terrorist could synthesize smallpox, given that its complete genome is in the open literature. He said no, but he looked very uncomfortable when answering, so I'm skeptical. A few weeks later, Keith Marshall (a fellow local SF fan) asked me if I was the one who asked him that. It turned out that the event was carried via radio, and he was listening, and recognized my voice. > ... also got the vaccines for Covid and all boosters, pneumonia, > RSV, the yearly flu shot... and due to a business trip to India, > hepatitis and typhus. Covid is the only thing I've been vaccinated for in this century. I've never had a flu shot, and never had the flu. Or a cold, at least as an adult. -- Keith F. Lynch - http://keithlynch.net/ Please see http://keithlynch.net/email.html before emailing me.