Can We Catch Diseases from Space?

Does anyone remember the movied "The Andromeda Strain"? I wonder if we do have a specific agency for dealing with potential infection threats from extraterrestrial sources.

With so many probes heading for Mars and other planets, the question of whether they could bring back new diseases has become important. SARS, Mad Cow Disease and HIV are only three of the diseases that have crossed the species barrier, so infectious pathogens from Martian rock samples probably could too.
Leslie Mullen writes in Astrobiology Magazine that the International Committee Against Martian Sample Return is worried about this. Not all pathogens cross the species barrier—our dogs and cats get diseases that don't affect us. Chicken and sheep farmers are untouched by diseases that wipe out their flocks and herds. A Martian microbe could enter the human body, but be harmless because it's incompatible with human physiology.

www.unknowncountry.com...

I have read the book and seen the movie. I do believe that we can catch some kind of virus from space. Some of those virues are very hardy.

Well, there is some basiss to the claim that we may not be affected because the base biology between the human race and alien acteria would be so differnt. However, considering the potential impact that a previously unkown alien disease could have on the human race, that would be an awful risk to take....

well............. how do we know that a multitude of viruses DONT come from space?

our little planet here is bombarded by cosmic dust and debris every day from space. Didnt we pass through the tail of a comet not too long ago?

IF we have dust raining down on us from space, who is to say we dont also have diseases that come from space too? We just might be able to adapt to them, or we have epidemics from then that our immune system overcomes naturally.

IS there any ifno out there that can correlate us passing through tails of comets or something to epidemics of disease?

I sincerely doubt a completely alien disease could affect human physiology unless it could mutate immediate before it died and attack. If an alien virus is anything like earthly viruses, it would have to be something that broke into cells, inserted its DNA, and then turn the cell into a virus factory. If the virus had no clue as to how earthly DNA operates, it wouldn't stand a chance. It would have to be some kind of super virus that could adjust itself to earth DNA as it attacked in order to have any effect or chance of survival.