Chicken Little! Chicken Little! 

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"We are seeing the emergence of a new strain of the bacteria that is the most common cause of skin infections in the country," CDC epidemiologist Daniel Jernigan told the Atlanta Constitution Journal. "It has developed resistance to standard antibiotic therapy and appears to be spreading rapidly."

Those who survive it often are left horribly deformed and need reconstructive surgery. There is no end to the ways you can contract it. People have developed NF from a rug burn, a routine blood draw at the doctor's office or a skinned knee.

Dropsy

Nature's cruelest disease. Victims suffer from a severely parched throat, but the water they desire to soothe their cottonmouth only makes the condition worse. Dropsy most famously got a shout-out from Descartes. In his Meditations on First Philosophy, while exploring the nature of reality and God, Descartes grapples with the notion of error. Why would God try to trick us? How can our bodies accept yummy food that has poison in it? And how can the dropsical patient seek a remedy that is actually an irritant? Descartes concluded that the human body is like a clock; despite a well-designed construction, sometimes internal flaws will arise.

The real dilemma, assuming you have dropsy because God hates you, is not with your initial death but with the fate of your soul. If you wanted more proof that God is enjoying your misfortune, dropsy causes you to look awfully silly before your death. Your legs swell up to overblown proportions, and in the worst cases, your face will look like a balloon with a nose.

The most common way to get dropsy these days is by ingesting adulterated mustard oil. In August 1998, bad mustard oil resulted in an outbreak of dropsy in the town of Gurgaon, India. The Inter Press Service reported, "Few can resist the aroma of fish fried in pungent mustard oil. But no one smelt anything fishy about toxic mustard oil supplies in the capital until hundreds fell violently ill with dropsy -- 50 of whom died by Sunday." In the Gurgaon aftermath, oil samples were taken from shops in the surrounding areas and ones found to be affected were summarily destroyed. Officials also cracked down on border patrol to snuff out adulterated mustard oil smugglers.

Fortunately, not everyone is at risk of contracting dropsy. Breast fed babies have shown to be immune. So should black market mustard oil penetrate the streets of Charlotte, find the nearest lactating teat and suckle, suckle, suckle.

Steatopygia

Fat-ass. Lard-butt. Dumpy-rump. Steatopygia has as many unofficial names as capacity for storage. Technically speaking, it's a high degree of fat accumulation in and around the buttocks. A racial characteristic most often associated with the Khoisan people of South Africa -- notably, 19th century "freak" Saartjie Bartmann, the "Hottentot Venus" who was ruthlessly exploited and exhibited naked in Europe -- this rare feature seems to have overtaken the American public. And not just black, inner city "welfare queens." The Obesity Epidemic that's mired the nation in dis-ease means millions of folk in the vanilla suburbs should be staying away from the Hooters buffet and stop "running for the border" at 2am. Any soccer mom with an Oprah addiction who's watched the uber-hostess' war with weight over the years knows this country is being steamrollered by Fat Ass, putting the populace at risk for diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure and even breast cancer. Of course, steatopygia's worst side effect is the classist and/or racist stuff you hear from those you-can-never-be-too-rich-or-too-thin types who jabber endlessly about encountering overweight citizens at public events. A nation full of fat butts would be hard pressed to get off those cushioned heinies in the case of an attack. Look for a more in-shape peoples to capitalize on our sloth. The Kenyans have endurance. Or, if they make a comeback, the Vikings are a burly bunch.

Brain Worms

If you're like US Rep. Sue Myrick, you spend a lot of time worrying about illegal immigrants cruising Charlotte streets with a case of Corona coursing through their bloodstreams. Myrick and other red, white, and blue-blooded Charlotte wackos raised their anti-illegal alien voices after an illegal Mexican killed a Gaston County schoolteacher while driving drunk. But if you're sane and rational, that might not be enough of a reason to fire up your xenophobic rage. So consider this disease that hails from south of the border and beyond:

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In 2001, a California teacher fell gravely ill upon her return from Mexico. A malignant pork taco she'd ingested gave her a worm that wiggled its way to her skull. Her disease, neurocysticercosis, has plagued Latin America, Asia and Africa in the past and has become more prevalent in the US since the 1980s. Neurocysticercosis has proven the theorem that brain plus worm equals bad. It causes the not-fun shakes (seizures), and oftentimes, death. Is it likely that all of our pork will acquire microscopic larvae that want to eat our brains? Probably not, but if push comes to shove, can you really see the South giving up bacon?