Reply #7: Had to use the headline as it was [View All]

[sharonking21]

In posting, I had to follow the rules for Late Breaking and use the actual headline. I agree the headline may be a tiny bit misleading, but I thought it was a very good article.

Just as an aside, I used to work at the Texas Department of Health. Every time I would walk through the laboratory building to get to my car in the parking lot beyond, I would see a small plaque commemorating the death long ago of a TDH worker.

Later I read his story. We have a famous bat cave in central Texas which he had been investigating for something. Although as far as he remembered he had not been bitten or scratched by bats, nevertheless he did contract rabies and he died. The theory was that either he didn't notice actual contact with one of the many bats or that somehow he scraped his skin on the rocky interior and was infected through the more than plentiful fresh bat guano containing rabies virus.

Later I started walking to my car outside the lab building on an open walkway. Suddenly I noted a plenitude of white boxes stacked on stainless steel lab tables rolled outside on the walkway; they were emanating a skunk-like stench. I figured they had to test dead skunks for rabies and couldn't stand the odor of storing them all inside. A couple of days later my suspicions were confirmed. As I walked out at the end of the day, I noted that a hand-lettered sign had appeared on top of the boxes.

The sign said: "Please do not steal the rabies specimens." I not only wondered who would want to do so, but also suddenly coveted the sign to put on my car when I had to park it in a bad part of town.