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135-Year-Old Piece of Skin (Scab) Triggers Smallpox Scare At Virginia Museum
My FOX DC ^ | Updated: Thursday, 19 May 2011, 8:03 AM EDT Read more: http://www.myfoxdc.com/dpp/news/offbeat/135- | Staff

Posted on 05/19/2011 5:41:52 AM PDT by Red Badger

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What were they thinking?............
1 posted on 05/19/2011 5:41:55 AM PDT by Red Badger
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To: Red Badger
What were they thinking?

Bureaucrats are incapable of thinking for themselves.

2 posted on 05/19/2011 5:46:18 AM PDT by Texas Fossil (Government, even in its best state is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one)
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To: Red Badger

They were all out of Bubonic plague and had to make do with what they had...


3 posted on 05/19/2011 5:50:48 AM PDT by thackney (life is fragile, handle with prayer)
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To: thackney

I’ve often wondered if these museums all over the world might actually harbor some virus that we lost our immunity to ages ago. Would make a good movie plot..............


4 posted on 05/19/2011 5:54:02 AM PDT by Red Badger (Jesus said there is no marriage in Heaven. That's why they call it Heaven............)
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To: Red Badger

Hm. Call it “Nightmare at the Museum”?


5 posted on 05/19/2011 5:58:27 AM PDT by knittnmom (Save the earth! It's the only planet with chocolate!)
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To: knittnmom

Good one!.....................


6 posted on 05/19/2011 6:00:46 AM PDT by Red Badger (Jesus said there is no marriage in Heaven. That's why they call it Heaven............)
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To: Red Badger

A “SCAB” museum. Who da thunk it?


7 posted on 05/19/2011 6:12:55 AM PDT by faucetman (Just the facts ma'am, just the facts)
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To: faucetman

Just once I’d like my home town to make the news for something good. Just once...

It’s always a story like murdering the bear at Maymont, rioting over free Macbooks, or potentially exposing people to smallpox.

*Sigh*


8 posted on 05/19/2011 6:16:55 AM PDT by VA_Gentleman ("Poor Al Gore. Global warming completely debunked via the very internet you invented." -Jon Stewart)
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To: Red Badger

what....a thread about 135 year old skin and not a single Helen Thomas photo??


9 posted on 05/19/2011 6:19:57 AM PDT by Buckeye McFrog
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To: Texas Fossil
What they were thinking was that it was a scab that might, at most, contain a virus used to innoculate folks against the far deadlier smallpox.

Unfortunately, it's kind of difficult to tell the difference, and, of course, everybody knows there are only two collections of smallpox on Earth ~ here and 1 in Russia.

So, one daysomebody got antsy. CDC's experts are "more sensitive" to potential risk so they got it, checked it, and said "Yup, that's what it wuz".

My first run in with CDC folks occurred when our office was supposed to come up with a plan for ACCEPTANCE of and DELIVERY of all those nasty samples that show up at various testing laboratories, or CDC centers around the company.

UNBELIEVABLY CDC, and others, routinely wrapped, stacked and sent samples of "stuff" through the mail!

Following the old dicta that if you don't mark it nobody will know ~ which reduces the chance of purposeful damage/sabotage by someone ~ they didn't mark their stuff and nobody knew.

Down in Atlanta the CDC would come to the post office to pick up the daily samples that'd come in the ordinary mail with your bill payments and birthday cards, and the Sears Ads.

CDC sent a specially prepared vehicle with a super-strength titanium reinforced containment vessel. They'd hop out in their "space suits", go to the back dock to get their sack of mail, then dump it in a hole in the containment vessel.

They'd give the sack back to the post office!

Oh, yeah!!!!

There were samples of Ebola virus, Dengue fever, Histoplasmosis, Smallpox(possibles), and other incredible diseases coming right through the mail in envelopes, small paper bags, and boxes.

This stuff was considered too dangerous for CDC personnel to handle OUTSIDE of a Class 4 laboratory environment.

Let me tell you, USPS got on that RIGHT AWAY and some serious changes were made.

Then there was all that stuff going to private labs ~ the sticks with fecal matter on them ~ you know them well I am sure!

Just going willy nilly through the mail, and then being handled by the recipients like DYNAMITE.

That stuff got fixed too. Then "sharps" ~ that got fixed.

Our office was stacked with hundreds of different kinds of containers folks wanted to be made MANDATORY for use.

In the end some specifications and procedures were worked up, safe handling requirements were developed, and all was well.

CDC's guys in Atlanta still send the guys in the space suits with the containment vessel to the post office every day, but the "other guys" get the good stuff now ~ right next to your Famous Amos cookies (bwahahahahahah). Some stuff just doesn't belong in the mail.

10 posted on 05/19/2011 6:37:02 AM PDT by muawiyah
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To: muawiyah
Don't believe a word of it.
11 posted on 05/19/2011 7:07:01 AM PDT by Kirkwood (Zombie Hunter)
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To: Buckeye McFrog
a thread about 135 year old skin and not a single Helen Thomas photo??

It says the scab was taken from an infant's arm. Helen would have been a teenager by then.

12 posted on 05/19/2011 7:10:46 AM PDT by Charles Henrickson (Helen of Thomas: The face that launched a thousand quips.)
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To: Red Badger

“There was Confederate president Jefferson Davis’s cigar...”

####

In our pussified, ridiculously overly cautious society, I’m surprised that discovery didn’t shut down the entire state.

Not just demon tobacco, but from a politically incorrect, white Christian southern “racist”.


13 posted on 05/19/2011 7:15:32 AM PDT by EyeGuy (2012: When the Levee Breaks)
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To: EyeGuy

It’s in Richmond, Virginia, the capital of the Confederacy..................


14 posted on 05/19/2011 7:22:26 AM PDT by Red Badger (Jesus said there is no marriage in Heaven. That's why they call it Heaven............)
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To: Red Badger

So the liberals, and their revisionist history, haven’t taken over Richmond like they have every other large city, then?


15 posted on 05/19/2011 7:34:12 AM PDT by EyeGuy (2012: When the Levee Breaks)
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To: EyeGuy

Since this is the Virginia Historical Society, I’d be surprised if there were any liberal revisionists there..............


16 posted on 05/19/2011 7:43:25 AM PDT by Red Badger (Jesus said there is no marriage in Heaven. That's why they call it Heaven............)
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To: Red Badger

Since this is the Virginia Historical Society, I’d be surprised if there were any liberal revisionists there..............

####

I wouldn’t know about that organization in particular, I would hope they are diligently committed to upholding Virginia’s remarkable history with a proper time context.

I do know that nationwide, those types of organizations are often supported by rich white liberals with an agenda, and that sadly, Virginia as a whole, is no longer the bastion of conservatism that it once was.

So, no, it wouldn’t surprise me one bit if, like the rest of the country, there are historically ignorant, big mouthed propagandists in Virginia, at universities, in elected office, and in “Societies” perfectly willing to shat upon the state’s history, and view it through the lens of modern revisionism.


17 posted on 05/19/2011 7:54:13 AM PDT by EyeGuy (2012: When the Levee Breaks)
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To: EyeGuy

That may be true in northern states, but The South still vehemently guards its history and cultural icons................


18 posted on 05/19/2011 7:56:28 AM PDT by Red Badger (Jesus said there is no marriage in Heaven. That's why they call it Heaven............)
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To: EyeGuy
For Virginia, with a history starting in 1598 (with the arrival of an European hunter/trapper who built a hut at what is now Martin's Hundred), history is a VERY LONG TIME!

Locally, where I live, Fairfax County's history is, interestingly enough, the history of George Washington, George Mason, the Lewis family, the Lee family, etc.

We just spent the day yesterday wandering around Mount Vernon taking a look at some new facilities there.

You can feel George Washington in the air, and there, off in the distance Admiral de Grasse keeps the blockade intact and no enemy warships make it up the Potomac. Lafayette is sitting at the main table, writing a letter to his other cousin, Rouchambeau, and all is right with the world. Martha putters around upstairs tending to the master bedroom.

19 posted on 05/19/2011 8:12:08 AM PDT by muawiyah
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To: Red Badger
"I’ve often wondered if these museums all over the world might actually harbor some virus that we lost our immunity to ages ago. Would make a good movie plot....."

One can only begin to imagine what's stored away in the nooks, crannies and recesses of the Mutter Museum.

20 posted on 05/19/2011 8:18:49 AM PDT by Joe 6-pack (Que me amat, amet et canem meum)
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