I&#x27;m reminded being scoffed at:  &quot;It&#x27;s not contagious.&quot;<p>I don&#x27;t mean to be part of a panic, but there&#x27;s been a lot of &quot;it isn&#x27;t&quot; based not on science but on, frankly, opinion.<p>Nowadays they think that they can link something like 25 - 30 % of cancers to viral infections.  (I seem to recall 25 being more current, with 30 being expected soon.)<p>In a broader context, sooner or later we will have to re-evaluate things like OCD.  (I&#x27;m thinking of the hand washing and &quot;cleanliness&quot; aspects, currently.)  They may not be &quot;merely&quot; a disease or disfunction, but rather an extremity on yet another &quot;spectrum&quot;, one that may in some circumstances actually provide an advantage.  Perhaps explaining its continued occurrence.<p>Prions are new to our understanding.  Except, as we continue to look at long-standing human behaviors, now with knowledge of them, we may find that, indirectly, they are not entirely new to our understanding and behaviors.<p>(Nonetheless, I agree with others here and in general:  Scary stuff.)<p>P.S.  I wonder whether&#x2F;when we will discover any advantageous aspects to some of them, or at least benign.