My boss told me this story a little while ago...some of you have heard it before but its definitely worth recording.
Some time ago, there was an outbreak of a virus in Malaysia. Little was known about the virus, and one researcher at the national public health laboratory asked if he could use CDC's facility in Fort Collins, Colorado* to study this virus in greater detail. The people in Ft. Collins said, yes, of course, and gave him the address so he could send a sample of the virus ahead of time to work with when he arrived.
The researcher arrived at the lab some days later - the virus had not arrived, but the Ft. Collins folks assumed it was being held up in customs. After welcoming the researcher to the lab, one of the CDC employees started showing him around the lab.
As soon as they entered the first lab, the visitor began unbuttoning his shirt. The somewhat taken-aback CDC employee tried to explain that she was married, they were in a lab, etc. etc...
...but then she saw that the researcher had two flasks to his chest chest. Knowing that the (potentially deadly, unresearched) virus could survive at body temperature, the researcher had decided to transport the live virus by taping it to himself on a trans-Pacific flight.
Luckily, no one was infected...but it kind of makes you wonder what else makes it through airport security.
*CDC has different sections - within the infectious disease branch is a sub-branch of the center for vector-borne infectious disease - basically, any disease carried by insects or other critters, and this branch is based out of Ft. Collins, CO. The dengue branch, where I work, is a subset of this branch. All of these branches have acronyms - so I work at the dengue branch, which is under DVBID, within the NCZVED as a part of CCID at CDC. A bit of a mouthful, no?
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