Time machines - easy way to trigger an epidemic?

So with all the SDMB sanctioned time travel going on, has anybody thought about the disease angle? Wouldn’t one of us venturing back in time both trigger a potential epidemic in that era and in the other hand also get a potentially lethal dose of local germs? Assuming the person was just visiting the past to check out the sights, maybe see a gladiator game, and then returned, that’d be possibly two epidemics for the price of one. Or maybe two complete sets of them with a bunch of different diseases on rampage both in the past and in the present.

Smallpox, anyone? Or some Black Death?

You can mitigate the consequences of this if you purchase the right protection. Is anyone here in insurance?

I think it’s more likely that someone from the future traveling into the past will catch something nasty than vice-versa. Our herd immunity to several icky diseases has dropped hugely in the past century, not to mention a lack of broad vaccination for smallpox.

I’d be sure to get up to date on all vaccinations prior to leaving for the past.

Some viral stuff and nasty parasites would certainly be an issue. Ordinary bacteria could be resolved with a pocketful of antibiotics.

That and we’d at least have some idea of “rest, good hygene, clean water, good nutrition” = better chance of surviving the nasty stuff.

And unless you’re stupid enough to say “Oh hey, I’m still fighting off Yellow Fever from my visit to Ancient China, but nevermind, I need to hop of a jet to London by way of the Atlanta airport”, you’re probably not going to spread it too far.

Meh, Navy gave me vaccinations for Yellow Fever, Black Plague and whatever else is in their full overseas package.

Which reminds me, it is getting time for a tetanus booster.

Of course, even if you’ve been vaccinated for Yellow Fever and Black Plague, there’s an excellent chance that it’s mutated somewhat over time. You’re vaccine might not be too effective against whatever form was around back then. And we’re not even completely sure what the Black Pague was. If the OP’s right, it might have been something that hasn’t even evolved yet!

That won’t help. You need to get the old, out of date vaccinations to fight off that ancient stuff.

This gives me a possible sci-fi story idea - the time-travel corp employees whose job it is to go visit the Black Plague and collect samples to whip up a vaccination before tourists can be allowed into the era. And the sample-collector would get quarantined when he returns to the future, to see if he comes down with it.

I think the fact that smallpox hasn’t re-emerged since it was eradicated in the 70’s is another piece of evidence that time travel will never be possible.

With time travel, the worst threat might not even be smallpox. With smallpox, at least we know what it is and have a vaccine for it. If someone time traveled and brought back a disease like sweating sickness, which vanished before modern medicine could figure out what it was, we’d be in even more trouble.

This kind of thing happens with sick people today, and it would happen with time travelers. Airlines generally won’t give you a refund if you don’t want to travel because you’re sick. With that kind of incentive to travel when you are sick, people are going to do it.

That’s not logical.

Viruses & bacteria evolve at rapid rates.

The diseases of the past? We’d be utterly immune to all but a few.

Today’s diseases in the past? Even mild flu would be deadly.

But I thought the Plague still exists today and is treatable with antibiotics

Or has it mutated so much that the plague known today is not the same in terms of vaccination? And, since it’s a bacterium and not a virus, a vaccination may be more difficult.

Do we inherit antibodies from our parents (or just our mother)? I didn’t think this was the case. So if great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandma had some now dead virus whose surviving descendants mutated after everyone became immune to the old form, do I have immunity from birth by virtue of being a descendant of a survivor?

Natural selection gives us many immunities.

Genetic traits that prevent certain diseases can be selected for. For example, it is believed that the sickle cell trait is useful in fighting off malaria and humans have evolved in such a way that they are not susceptible to the feline leukemia virus. Some people of Northern European descent have a gene that makes them resistant to HIV. It is hypothesized that this may have made their ancestors immune to the plague.

So it could be the case that your great-great-…-grandma only survived to have children because she had a gene that allowed her to fight off some deadly disease of the time.

Just like **Bosda Di’Chi of Tricor ** said faster than I did.