Compounding USDA's lax practices has been its refusal to allow beef processors to independently test cattle for mad cow disease. In 2004, Creekstone Farms, a Kansas processor of black Angus beef with a large Japanese clientele, asked for permission to test its 300,000 cattle for BSE using a $500,000 testing site it had built to USDA specifications.<p>But the agency ruled that the BSE test was licensed only for "surveillance" of animal health, and rejected Creekstone's request because it implied "a consumer safety aspect" that was "not scientifically warranted."<p><a href="https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2006-05/uoia-ftf051506.php" rel="nofollow">https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2006-05/uoia-ftf0515...</a>
In other Prion news, there's a prion disease, Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD), affecting populations of wild Deer, Elk, etc. in North America and other chunks of the world. It's not yet known to infect people, but please be careful when eating wild game. [1]<p>My mind first went to this issue when I read the headline, though upon reading the article it's probably something else, as CWD isn't really a thing in that region [it's more of a Mountain state kind of thing thing]. And, of course, I'm not a prion expert, so I only vaguely know what I'm writing about.<p>[1] <a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/food-nutrition/food-safety/food-related-illnesses/chronic-wasting-disease.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/food-nutriti...</a>
Prion diseases terrify me. Especially having been in the UK eating beef at the time of the BSE outbreaks in the 1990s.<p>I wonder if there have been studies on the scale of potential latent vCJD/Prion disease in the population?
There was some research which suggested that a not insignificant number of dementia cases were actually misdiagnosed mad cow disease. Because CJD can stick around for a while without taking affect, I wouldn't be surprised.
I know someone in their early 40s experiencing dementia-type symptoms (consistent with frontotemporal dementia). It is early but is quickly getting worse. It's heartbreaking to see how this is affecting his spouse and children. So far, they don't have a diagnosis. They are still running tests. It has to be quite frustrating not to be able to point to a root cause. So little can be known without direct access to the brain.
Not this again. I really hope that the incubation period is not around the corner with another wave of vCJD 'variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease' aka (Mad cow disease).
The province of New Brunswick has set up a website tracking this here: <a href="https://www2.gnb.ca/content/gnb/en/departments/ocmoh/cdc/neuro_cluster.html" rel="nofollow">https://www2.gnb.ca/content/gnb/en/departments/ocmoh/cdc/neu...</a>
> CJD test came back negative<p>So a CJD test is usually staining a biopsy with congo red and observing apple-green birefringence in the image. This <i>generally</i> works to detect amyloid plaques, which is common to all prions. So unless there was a lab mistake, the prion is localized elsewhere from where the biopsies are being done (FFI, for example, localizes to a different part of the brain) or they were using some other procedure, it's seems pretty unlikely this is a prion disease.
One of the questions used to screen blood donors in the U.S. is whether they lived in the U.K. in the early 1990s. If you answer "yes," you can't donate.<p>The reason is the outbreak there of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE, aka "mad cow disease") and the human variant mentioned in the article, Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease (vCJD) which may lie dormant for decades IIRC.
So what I've read, suggests that prions do not degrade in the environment very readily. A deer with prion disease can die, decompose, then the prions be absorbed into the vegetation to be re-transmitted to other deer. Naively it would seem that there could be an ongoing accumulation of prions in the environment.<p>This makes me think of fire policy. Although prions are resistant to temperatures of 200C or so, wildfires often reach much higher temperatures. It would seem, again naively, that a regular regime of fire (e.g. controlled burns) might curtail any such accumulation (as well as have benefits to fire-adapted and fire-dependent plant species). I'm not sure if controlled burns are ever allowed to get that hot though.
The forests of New Brunswick are routinely sprayed with large amounts of glyphosphate herbicide.<p>Is it possible that this is the cause, instead of prions?<p>[1] <a href="https://www.conservationcouncil.ca/where-our-forest-is-being-sprayed-this-summer-2019/" rel="nofollow">https://www.conservationcouncil.ca/where-our-forest-is-being...</a><p>[2] <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/liberals-greens-glyphosate-spraying-election-forestry-1.5706309" rel="nofollow">https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/liberals-greens...</a><p>[3] <a href="https://nben.ca/en/component/tags/tag/glyphosate-ban" rel="nofollow">https://nben.ca/en/component/tags/tag/glyphosate-ban</a><p>[4] <a href="http://www.stopsprayingnb.ca/?page_id=118" rel="nofollow">http://www.stopsprayingnb.ca/?page_id=118</a>
I lived in Fredericton for about 7 years and have been around the province a bit. The air in Moncton is definitely unusual. I wouldn't be surprised if it has something to do with it.
I do wonder if it’s possible that vaccines that are designed to make the body produce certain parts of the spike protein could lead to prion diseases accidentally. Are we sure of the proteins coded for and also that this coding can’t produce misfolded proteins? It’s pretty unlikely but also we don’t have long term testing of these proteins in the body.<p>* please note I’ve had the first dose of Astra Zeneca and intend to get the second.
> Several patients have presented with transient "Capgras delusion", a psychiatric disorder in which a person believes someone close to them has been replaced by an impostor.<p>> "It's quite disturbing because, for instance, a patient would tell his wife: 'Sorry ma'am you cannot get in bed, I'm a married man' and even if the wife gives her name, he'd say: 'You're not the real one,'" Dr Marrero says.<p>You could spice up a lot of marriages if you could harmlessly cause Capgras delusion for a few hours
Since prions can be inhaled via aerosoles[1], I often wonder how long it will be until vaping causes prion diseases to rapidly spread. Or new prions to be introduced.<p>[1]: <a href="https://journals.plos.org/plospathogens/article?id=10.1371/journal.ppat.1001257" rel="nofollow">https://journals.plos.org/plospathogens/article?id=10.1371/j...</a>