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When People Ate People, a Strange Disease Emerged
- Blueskytech 10y agoMany of you have probably heard about Prions and Papua New Guinea but the end of the article discusses new prion diseases showing up in deer within North America. The idea that human's could get a prion disease from deer meat, coupled with a potentially long incubation period, is frightening. Living in a hunting community I may avoid eating deer for the foreseeable future.
- dnautics 10y agoit's highly unlikely... There's a (probably directed, weighted) graph of species-species transmission potential, and it does seem to obey some rough distance rule, which does NOT correlate necessarily with species distance rule. We think that cows can transmit to humans; cows and sheep can co-transmit. (if you have a sheep with scrapie sharing a pasture with cow, the cow can get mad cow disease). deer though do not seem to transmit to cow, even though CWD is super common in deer and deer and cow pasture together pretty much everywhere in the US except maybe hawaii. Here, a transgenic mouse with human prion protein is resistant to CWD transmission; but the same mouse with elk protein is susceptible. http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/19336896.2015.1118603?src=recsys& http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/19336896.2015.11...
- Blueskytech 10y agoThat's really great information thanks for sharing
- dnautics 10y agoHere is a really good review: https://academic.oup.com/bmb/article/66/1/199/284812/Other-animal-prion-diseases https://academic.oup.com/bmb/article/66/1/199/284812/Other-a...
- maxerickson 10y agoIdentification and containment is also a management priority: http://www.michigan.gov/dnr/0,4570,7-153-10366_54559_59155-396994--,00.html http://www.michigan.gov/dnr/0,4570,7-153-10366_54559_59155-3...
- SerLava 10y agoHawaii too- there are a handful of deer and a ton of cows on the Big Island.
- arwhatever 10y agohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5hTF2pw-4s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5hTF2pw-4s
- YCode 10y agoI understand prion diseases are rare and it's more likely I'll die in a car accident or something, but the persistence of prions is just a horrifying concept. Highly resistant to heat, radiation, proteases, enzymes... Basically if you've got a prion disease it's just a matter of time before they end you.
- rch 10y agoI'll probably pass on the Elk jerky on my next road trip through SW Colorado.
- nathancahill 10y agoIt can happen anywhere at anytime, that's why it's so terrifying.
- Florin_Andrei 10y agoThere's a bit of good news in the fact that the biosphere has not only endured these last 3.8 billion years or so, but it has thrived. So there's probably no prion apocalypse in the future - at least not at the scale of the whole biosphere. Individuals and species, on the other hand, seem to be fair game.
- quantumhobbit 10y agoWhat would a cure for prion diseases even look like? Are prions targeted by the immune system at all? That to me is what is scary about them.
- itchyouch 10y agoFrom what I recall, they are seen as normal proteins by the immune system, thus not targeted. A simple illustration on prions was to imagine it like a busted cable end that would break the socket it plugs into, then the socket would break other cable ends plugged into it. This would occur until all sockets and cable ends were broken in the same way.
- wiradikusuma 10y agoReminds me of a scene in the film Book of Eli, which, if you're a fan of Fallout, should watch.
- brandonmenc 10y agoAn underrated movie, imo.
- goatlover 10y agoIs it certain this came from cannibalism and not infected pigs?
- tray5 10y agoYes, very certainly. When the cannibalism stopped, so did instances of Kuru. Although you can get Prion diseases from eating infected pig brain and nervous tissue, the instances discussed in the article were solely caused by ritual cannibalism.
- fourstar 10y agoCan you be tested for prion disease?
- ethomson 10y agoIndeed, you can. What you cannot do, however, is remain alive to get the results.
- gonvaled 10y agoUnless they are negative?
- andoon 10y agoI don't understand. Aren't biopsies of the brain possible? I still remember that episode of House MD, Euphoria.
- rsync 10y ago"Indeed, you can. What you cannot do, however, is remain alive to get the results." If we're broadening our minds to all possibilities, it's worth pointing out that you can expose a third party to your as-yet-unconfirmed prion disease and then destructively test them, which would then allow you to test yourself while remaining alive.
- metasean 10y agoThe last I heard the test can only be done during autopsy. (Because they're analyzing slices of brain tissue.)
- metasean 10y agoI first heard about prions and Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease after getting a letter saying I may have been exposed. I had surgery after someone with CJD, but before that person died, was autopsied, and diagnosed. That was over a decade ago. So far no signs of it. I did make peace with the fact that I have a much higher probability of dying from it than the average American. The only substantivu changes in my life are: (a) My family and I have had very frank discussion about death earlier than we would have otherwise. (b) I no longer donate blood. (c) I removed myself as an organ donor. Although my family knows I still want my body to be available for science.
- peternicky 10y agoWow, what a frightening letter to receive! Thank you for sharing and best of health to you and your family.
- metasean 10y agoThank you! I definitely went through a range of emotions from confusion to anger that more wasn't done to minimize the likelihood of incidents like this. As I learned more, I realized how improbable this situation was in the first place. My current understanding is that while our* probability is higher than the average American, we're still highly unlikely to develop CJD. More importantly to me is that there isn't anything I can do about it, so I try not to let it consume a lot of my mental energy. *I think there was a two week window, so anyone operated on at that hospital during that window is in the same situation.
- developer2 10y ago>> My family and I have had very frank discussion about death earlier than we would have otherwise. It would benefit any family to have that discussion, even if both parents are in their 20s and there has been no "scare scenario". Many people die every single day due to unpredictable events, with no warning whatsoever. Unfortunately, too many people have never really pondered their mortality, leading them to be incapable of even considering what it would mean if man/woman/child died tomorrow. Having a sit-down meeting is likely to be brushed off as a "meh, it'll never actually happen to us". Any one of us could be dead in the next 5 minutes. That's more reality than paranoia. The trick is to get to the point where you understand just how fleeting life is (you or a loved one might be gone any day now), but without letting it negatively control your life. >> I did make peace with the fact that I have a much higher probability of dying from it than the average American You should stop thinking that way. A decade past the initial scare, you're likely no more at risk than anyone else. You weren't given the disease, you were exposed to a small possibility of it. It's still the responsible thing to not donate blood or be an organ donor, but as far as your day-to-day life goes you should consider yourself squarely in the "average" category.
- laurentoget 10y agoPrions were the cause of the BSE cattle disease. more commonly known as mad cow disease in europe some years ago, which was blamed on cattle being fed animal products. It killed a couple hundred human and millions of animals either died or were slaughtered. The incubation period is several years so at the height of the crisis the worst case scenario involved hundreds of thousand of people developing the disease. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bovine_spongiform_encephalopathy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bovine_spongiform_encephalopat...
- maxerickson 10y agoLots of US people end up hearing about this in a roundabout way, having lived in the UK for a period of time is a disqualifier for donating blood in the US. So each time you donate blood you read a question asking about cumulative time spent: https://www.fda.gov/BiologicsBloodVaccines/BloodBloodProducts/QuestionsaboutBlood/DonatingBlood/#nvCJD https://www.fda.gov/BiologicsBloodVaccines/BloodBloodProduct...
- popopobobobo 10y agoThis article make me unwell. Just thinking of the cannibalism makes me wanna throw up.
- riffic 10y agoLet me accelerate that then: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Beginning_Was_the_End https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Beginning_Was_the_End
- swombat 10y agoWow, that book seems like a load of bollocks and a half. Makes Truthers look like the picture of sanity by contrast...
- Bjorkbat 10y agoThis might just have been the best thing I've ever seen on Wikipedia. We evolved from a species of ape that developed an appetite for going on cannibalistic brain-eating killing sprees followed shortly after by a lot of rape because eating brains fills us with uncontrollable lust. In the long-term this made us super intelligent, but killed our psychic abilities and thus our ability to connect with nature, so we began to do a lot of really awful things like pollute the environment, develop nuclear weapons, and become racially-tolerant (gasp!). If you want to escape from the hell that awaits modern society, then you should drop out, become vegetarian, get acquainted with Eastern philosophy, and maybe try and reshape your head using some wooden frames. Also, modern cannibalistic tribes are really just trying to play catch-up with white people. But the best part of all has to be the Devo connection.
- touchofevil 10y agoI did a bunch of research (googling) back in the late 90's or 2000s when the mad cow disease outbreak first happened mainly in England. I thought it was pretty terrifying and I wanted to know what the hell was going on. I read about Kuru all the way back then and the take away was that people shouldn't eat the brain and nervous tissue of other people or Kuru could result. But also it seemed that mad cow disease was occurring because cows were being fed the ground up remains of other cows and that included cow brain and cow nervous tissue. So basically what was happening with cows was the same as what was happening with people getting Kuru. I also recall learning that in order to get mad cow disease you would need to eat cow brain or cow nervous tissue. Of course, you would probably assume, as I did, that you are safe because you don't eat cow brains or nervous tissue. Well, you could be wrong about that. There is something called AMR (advanced meat recovery). As I understand it, when the meat processing plant removes the spine and skull from the cow there is still some meat stuck to the spine and skull. The AMR process entails blasting off that meat stuck to the spine and skull with some kind of high pressure for use in ground meat. But the result is that some nervous tissue from the cow can get mixed up in ground meat created with the AMR technique and that is one way that you could end up eating cow nervous tissue. After I did that research, I swore off ground meat.
- thinkmassive 10y agoA workaround for people who would like to eat ground meat but avoid this issue is to grind it yourself, or to buy steak and have the butcher grind it for you.
- metamet 10y agoOr purchase directly from a local farmer, where you can have an open dialogue about their meat raising and processing techniques. Farmers markets can be great for finding these relationships.
- kevinmchugh 10y agoPlus, your meat will be more freshly ground this way. More freshly ground meat is superior in almost every way: http://aht.seriouseats.com/archives/2011/04/the-burger-lab-whats-the-best-way-to-grind-beef.html http://aht.seriouseats.com/archives/2011/04/the-burger-lab-w...
- finid 10y agoFor the past months I've been seriously considering starting a theme restaurant that served wild meats - deer, hogs, gators, large constrictors, etc. That idea just went out the window.
- JauntTrooper 10y agoPrion-disease transmission from wild game is still quite rare. I'd be more worried about exotic parasites or radioactivity from the wild hogs. [0] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/germany/11068298/Radioactive-wild-boar-roaming-the-forests-of-Germany.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/germany/110...
- mcguire 10y agoAround here, deer meat is illegal to sell. You would probably have to farm the meats.
- Winblows69 10y agoNPR needs to be more concise. Their informative articles such as this one are written as if the writer is trying to get an A in creative writing 101. Knock off the color and give us the scoop in 2-3 paragraphs.
- mkagenius 10y agoOkay, atleast some benefit of being a vegetarian. But iirc there was some vegies too that can infect the brain.
- samirillian 10y agoAnd that's why you never grok.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- mtw 10y agoCan we view this as nature's mechanism to prevent cannibalism amongst species? Mad cow disease occurred when cattle were fed the remains of other cattle in the form of meat and bone meal
- MrBuddyCasino 10y agoWhy would nature care?
- cookiecaper 10y agoCannibalism seriously threatens a species' survival. Risk of disease from eating same-species meat is a good way to stop it.
- maxerickson 10y agoSmall mammals often respond to stress with cannibalism. http://www.petplace.com/article/small-mammals/general/when-your-small-mammal-is-sick/cannibalism http://www.petplace.com/article/small-mammals/general/when-y... Rabbits are somewhat infamous for eating their young. I'm not sure there is any research about it, but it could be a resource preserving behavior.
- zdragnar 10y agoHardly. Plenty of species exhibit cannibalism; see certain spiders and praying mantis (mantis?) post-mating rituals.
- cookiecaper 10y agoCorrect, I don't mean to imply that no species are cannibalistic; as you note, some instances are well-known. Nevertheless, cannibalism can be a real risk for some species and adaptations to prevent it are useful, especially in the case of mammals.
- sqeaky 10y ago
- throwaway001001 10y ago>My own interest in this question became rekindled by my experiences in New Guinea over the last 50 years. When I arrived in New Guinea for the first time, it became clear to me almost immediately that New Guineans are curious, questioning, talkative people with complex languages and social relationships, on the average at least as intelligent as Europeans and Americans. http://www.jareddiamond.org/Jared_Diamond/Guns,_Germs,_and_Steel.html http://www.jareddiamond.org/Jared_Diamond/Guns,_Germs,_and_S...
- seanwasere 10y agopolution in the water streams caused from the gold prospecting.
- nstj 10y agoResearcher: "I have no solid idea where this problem could be coming from. As a last resort I'll examine whether the ritualistic consumption of decomposing human brains may have something to do with it" > Lindenbaum had a hunch about what was going on, and she turned out to be right. It had to do with funerals. [0]: Ibid.
- jmnicholson 10y agoInteresting side story is that Gadjusek did a year in prison for child molestation (which he think is a natural/good thing). There is a documentary on him on BBC called the Genius and the boys https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4OxppDxzSww https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4OxppDxzSww