Month: September 2022

MAD COW DISEASE. "The BSE epidemic that emerged in the mid-eighties and led to about 180,000 clinically diagnosed cases (and likely to many times more non-diagnosed ones) was fueled by the feeding of BSE-prion-contaminated bone-and-meat meal to cattle." (What madness. Cows eat grass?). https://lnkd.in/ey5nHGn View in LinkedIn

"PRION DISEASES are so far unique among conformational diseases in that they are transmissible, not only experimentally but also by natural routes, mainly by ingestion...A striking feature of prions is their extraordinary resistance to conventional sterilisation procedures, and their capacity to bind to surfaces of metal and plastic without losing infectivity." Infective in food and blood. https://lnkd.in/ey5nHGn View in LinkedIn

VARIANT PRIONS. "More recently, variant CJD (vCJD), ascribed to consumption of BSE-contaminated products, has claimed over 120 victims. Neither humoral nor cellular immunological responses have been detected in prion diseases." https://lnkd.in/ey5nHGn View in LinkedIn

CREUTZFELDT-JACOB DISEASE "in humans virtually every vCJD patient has been homozygous for methionine at codon 129, while heterozygotes at the same codon appear most resistant to kuru (a prion disease of Papua New Guinean Highlanders transmitted during cannibalistic mortuary feasts). In sheep, three PRNP codons (136, 154 and 171) are largely responsible for determining scrapie susceptibility." http://mbe.oxfordjournals.org/content/20/1/111.full View in LinkedIn

KURU AND CANNIBALISM. "The practice of cannibalism in one Papua New Guinea tribe lead to the spread of a fatal brain disease called kuru that caused a devastating epidemic in the group. But now, some members of the tribe carry a gene that appears to protect against kuru, as well as other so-called "prion diseases," such as mad cow." https://lnkd.in/eugiVet View in LinkedIn

MAD COW IN BRITS. "In 2013, a study revealed that 1 in 2,000 people in the United Kingdom might harbour the infectious prion protein that causes vCJD." Remember: 30-40 year incubation periods; diagnosis at autopsy. https://lnkd.in/eukNKpe View in LinkedIn

BLOOD TRANSFUSION. "At least three vCJD cases out of 229 worldwide since 1980 are believed to have been contracted via blood transfusion rather than by eating contaminated meat. To minimize risk, blood banks in North America for about 15 years have turned away potential donors who spent three months or more in the United Kingdom between 1980 and 1996." https://lnkd.in/ehyZ7DA View in LinkedIn

SLOW BURN. "With an incubation period that could stretch to decades, "it's hard to say this is the end of the outbreak and it's all over," according to Ryan Maddox, an epidemiologist with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)." Possibly the next big one. https://lnkd.in/ehyZ7DA View in LinkedIn

NEW RULES. "Nothing comes from nothing. For decades, the rule of biological reproduction has stated that in order for something to replicate itself, genetic material is required. Prions, it would seem, forgot to read that particular rule." http://www.strangehorizons.com/2004/20040216/killer.shtml View in LinkedIn

"INFECTION, by the classic definition, means that a bacterium or virus or other small organism has entered our body and reproduced itself many times over, causing damage in the process. In response to the damage, we sneeze, vomit, cough or bleed. Even a futuristic definition of infection, which includes the possibility of "gene therapy gone wrong" causing a kind of "infection by DNA," still requires the presence of genetic material." http://www.strangehorizons.com/2004/20040216/killer.shtml View in LinkedIn