No one ever said that protest was pretty, but with hundreds of people camping out indefinitely and in close proximity, "Occupy" movements around the country are more ugly than most. And now, between the winter cold and flu season and dicey sanitation at the camps, occupiers are beginning to pose a serious public health threat.

“Pretty much everything here is a good way to get sick,” Salvatore Cipolla, a Zuccotti Park protester, told the New York Times last week. “It’ll definitely thin the herd.”

Since then, however, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg did some preemptive thinning of park protesters, citing concerns of public health and safety. And while the New York Civil Liberties Union and others indicated Bloomberg’s concern was a convenient excuse to oust occupiers, there’s indication that Zuccotti Park and other camps have been spreading more than general discontent with American avarice.

In Zuccatti Park for instance, protesters were passing around a wheezing cough they called Zuccatti lung, flulike illnesses, and an elevated risk of sexually transmitted diseases, according to the Times. Occupy Atlanta had two cases of tuberculosis identified after it moved from a park to a local homeless shelter, according to CBS Atlanta.

Sanitation has also been an issue at many of the camps. Between water being reused, food scraps deposited randomly, molding cardboard protest signs, and open urination, the health conditions in Zuccatti Park are more like a refugee camp.

“I’m amazed that in a park full of revolutionaries, there are large contingents that can’t throw away their own trash,” Jordan McCarthy, a member of the protesters’ sanitation team told the Times.

Camps could make headway in thwarting disease and unsanitary conditions if they chose to, Buddy Creech, an infectious disease expert and associate director of the Vanderbilt Vaccine Program told CNN. Much like the workplace, things like vaccinations and good health practices—like going home when you're sick and regular hand washing—would go a long way.

As it is now, dirty conditions, flu season, and living elbow-to-elbow are creating a trifecta of disease spread.

“All of these coming together could be a nightmare,” Creech said. “Sometimes public health and individual liberties are at odds.”