Comedy is where you find it.
Diseases that sound funny (but probably aren’t): Amnesic shellfish poisoning • Arenavirus infection • Black Creek Canal virus • Brainerd diarrhea • Cat scratch disease • Cat flea tapeworm infection • Chagas disease • Crabs • Delusional parasitosis • Dracunculiasis • Endilomax nana infection • GBS infection • Hansen’s disease • Hib disease • Hot tub rash • Kala-azar • La Crosse encephalitis • Lassa fever • Monkeypox • Orf virus infection • PCP infection • Pediculosis • Pontiac fever • Rat bite fever • Rhinitis • Rift Valley fever • Scrub typhus • Shingles • Slapped cheek disease • Sleeping sickness • Swimmer’s ear • Thrush • Undulant fever • VHF (Viral Hemorrhagic Fevers) • Whipworm • Wuchereria bancrofti • Yellow fever • Yersinosis
Others that sound even funnier (but still probably aren’t):
Astrovirus infection sounds like it would lay Astroboy up for days with a high fever.
New York-1 virus infection is probably something only the governor of the state of New York can contract.
I hear American Express is suing to have a disease named after them. For everyone else, there’s VISA (Vancomycin Intermediate Staphylococcus aureus).
Kawasaki syndrome can only be caught by wussies. Real men get Harley Sickness, or they get nothing at all.
I had mumps as a kid, and I know it’s serious, but it still sounds like something only Eeyore would come down with. It’s even fun to say: Mumps. Mumps. Mumps.
Q fever is particularly virulent among Star Trek: The Next Generation fans.
And finally, a decidedly unfunny one: Anytime you read about it in the news, it’s usually prefaced with the phrase “antibiotic-resistant superbug” — MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus) killed about 19,000 Americans in 2005, most of them in hospitals, according to a report published in October in the Journal of the American Medical Association. According to Wikipedia, that’s more people than AIDS. Each year. And you can catch it from touching people.
And we worry about mountain lions.