Product: Collectable
Disease Collection   (+5, -5)  [vote for, against]
Collect viruses/diseases/etc, and wait until they become rare. Then sell.

Obtain fairly pure samples of disease - from the common cold, to anthrax. As with any other collection, eg. books, stamps, value will increase with time, rarity and collectors items.

For example - the common cold mutates every year; so, someone about now could collect a neat sum on selling a vial of their prized "1924 common cold."

Furthermore - if at some point in the future, science manages to eradicate, say, a particular disease, and a quirk in evolution causes us to become very vulnerable to this no-longer-existing disease; then maybe Hussein's great-grandson would pay a large amount of money for your little glass tube of 1998 Influenza.

Much like wine collecting, really.
-- Detly, Sep 13 2000

Center for Disease Control Trading Cards http://www.cdc.gov/...s4kids/tradecrd.htm
This is legit people! [dgeiser13, Sep 13 2000, last modified Oct 05 2004]

Dispersion http://www.eiu.org/...riments/dispersion/
"Your easy one stop choice for personal lethal biological pathogens" [wrenchndmachine, Sep 13 2000, last modified Oct 05 2004]

Baked. If you search the web for 'Biological Warfare'., I think you'll find that your government already do this.
-- DrBob, Sep 15 2000


No, but I mean, for the commonners. Like, governments have archives and libraries, but people still collect books.
-- Detly, Sep 16 2000


How would collecters make sure of the authenticity of the specimen?
-- centauri, Jan 15 2001


test them? oo er...
-- squigbobble, Feb 14 2004


<Much like wine collecting, really>

I'm trying to picture a girl coming to my house because I told her I have a great '92 Flu I think she'd enjoy....
-- normzone, Feb 14 2004


[normzone] I'd take a '92 flu over an '18 one anyday!
-- squigbobble, Apr 30 2005



random, halfbakery