5 ms·

Prion disease can spread through air

27 points by auxbuss 16y ago

rflrob 16y ago
I already found prions terrifying: incurable, nigh-indestructible, and not terribly difficult to ingest without knowing it. This just kicks it up a notch.
- 16s 16y ago
  Nothing to be concerned about. How many people die of CJD every year? Not many. You should be afraid of cancer, car wrecks and heart disease, they kill more people in one week than CJD does in a decade.
  - wglb 16y ago
    The thing about it that is frightening is that the length of time that it can take to manifest itself can be a very long time. Thus, it could be that already there are many many latent, slowly developing cases of nvCJD in our population.
    - jared314 16y ago
      Research into slow diseases always seem to get funding slowly.
      - wglb 16y ago
        Perhaps it is the airplane crash theory of giving impetus to research. Nobody, en masse, has yet died, so what is the problem.
        Groxx 16y ago
        Well, there was that initial surge of public interest when the cause and breadth of mad cow disease was first publicized. I doubt many people think of it much any more, though. I think bird flu did it in.
  - rflrob 16y ago
    You're absolutely right, and the time I spend worrying about any of these things is relatively low either way. As a moderately fit young adult with a good family medical history, only car wrecks are something that are reasonably likely to strike me in the next 10-20 years. That doesn't change the fact that, considering each on it's own, prions are scarier to me than the others. You're more likely to get kicked by a deer than eaten by a shark, but sharks are still scarier animals.
    - Groxx 16y ago
      >You're more likely to get kicked by a deer than eaten by a shark, but sharks are still scarier animals. That's a nice phrasing... especially accurate for people (like me) who live in / near deer'd areas and nowhere near shark-country. I'll have to remember it for later use :)
- InclinedPlane 16y ago
  A nearby supernova or more distant hypernova could bathe the entire Earth in lethal levels of neutrino radiation. There would be no way to shield yourself from it (they can penetrate through the entire Earth easily) and no way to prevent the death of all human beings alive. But it's unlikely. Better to concentrate on risks which are more relevant and more likely. Do you find driving or riding in an automobile terrifying? Eating a cheese burger? You're far more likely to die of heart disease or an automotive accident than prions or neutrino radiation.
  - billswift 16y ago
    >lethal levels of neutrino radiation I doubt that is even physically possible. Neutrinos are nearly impossible to detect because they don't interact with normal matter. In fact, I'm not sure they interact with much of anything. Does anybody know if they do interact with any other elementary particles? Your point about concentrating on more likely risks is a good one though.
    - InclinedPlane 16y ago
      Yes, neutrinos are incredibly weakly interacting. However, Type II supernovae dump the vast majority (99%) of their energy into neutrino radiation. Moreover, the extremely high energies of supernova neutrinos (MeV range) increases their interaction cross-section as well as the damage they can do when they do interact. If a supernova (or hypernova) were to occur close enough to Earth it could cause a mass extinction due to neutrino radiation alone. Consider, supernova 1987A radiated so many neutrinos that it increased the neutrino flux at Earth by 10,000x compared to the Solar flux. That event happened in a neighboring galaxy 168,000 light-years away, an event a mere 20 light-years away would result in a neutrino flux 70 million times greater than that (700 billion times normal background levels). A hypernova would release over 100 times as much energy. Indeed, some researchers believe that some mass extinctions in Earth's past might be due to such events: http://lanl.arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/9505028 http://lanl.arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/9505028 Fortunately for us stars that would be both large enough to go supernova and close enough to present such a threat should be quite bright and thus very unlikely to have escaped our notice (hypernovae candidates as well, if we're lucky).
Groxx 16y ago
Isn't this worthy of a "duh"? I mean, seriously. A prion is a protein. Say you have a prion disease and you sneeze: it's now in the air, where it won't die if it dries out or is exposed to UV radiation like lots of non-air-traversing diseases. In the experiment: a mad-cow-disease-for-mice was aerosoled (sp?) at lab mice, and they're surprised it infected the mice through the nasal nerves, which are damn-near exposed directly to air. >"We were amazed at how efficiently they spread" The efficiency may be surprising. How can the spreading be? >The prions didn't need processing by the immune system first, as some other research has suggested Really? It's a protein! Sure, some could need processing by the immune system, or gastric acids, to change how they are shaped, but certainly not all. This being science, yes, it does need an experiment to show that it is so. I'm by no means arguing this is a superfluous use of funds. I'm arguing that believing otherwise and acting on it when designing your safety protocols is borderline gross negligence, and I wouldn't be surprised if it has killed someone already.
- jacquesm 16y ago
  Similar stupidity happened early on with HIV, especially dental procedures, I recall that there was a big stink about the aerosolized particles from the drill making it in to the suction tube and back out again when starting up the drill for the next patient. So now the whole assembly is replaced between patients instead of just the tips. It seemed rather obvious to me at the time. On the other hand, what's obvious in retrospect is not always obvious beforehand.
  - Groxx 16y ago
    That one is a bit less obvious overall though, I'd argue. It's a suction tube; things coming out isn't what most people expect. But yes, it does seem obvious. But expecting proteins to somehow change when aerosoled? And this is well after when the resistances to radiation and chemicals of some of the nasty ones of these was known. Look at a steak. Smell the steak. You're sniffing entire steak proteins (not that that's the majority of the smell, of course). Why would prions be any different?
- jforman 16y ago
ars 16y ago
Related: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/05/health/05pork.html?pagewanted=print http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/05/health/05pork.html?pagewan... http://www.naturalnews.com/022832.html http://www.naturalnews.com/022832.html
- tptacek 16y ago
  Interesting, but, not really related: yours is a story about an autoimmune disorder thought to be caused by forced aerosolization of pig brains during brain harvesting, and subsequent inhalation of those brain aerosols. That was a fun sentence to write.
jberryman 16y ago
Prion's are pretty amazing as examples of self-replication. The fact that they (and viruses) are considered "non-living" always seemed like an arbitrary distinction to me.
- rdtsc 16y ago
  As I already posted in a reply above, what makes prions so fascinating is that they are pure information. It is a mis-shaped protein and it is the particular state of it being mis-shaped that allows it to mis-shape other nearby proteins and transmit that state. I find that very interesting. It is akin to an cell automata -- a glider perhaps.
Cushman 16y ago
...aerosols containing as little as 2.5 per cent brain tissue from mice... 2.5 percent? As in 1 part in 40 tissue? Is that not as ridiculous as it sounds? Edit: Thinking on it, that probably means the suspension which was aerosolized rather than the aerosol itself, which explains the conclusion that 10% suspensions might be dangerous to handle. Is that normally how you measure aerosol concentration?
stretchwithme 16y ago
note to self: do NOT put mad cow victims in the wood chipper
- rdtsc 16y ago
  The heck do ya mean? ;-)
  - stretchwithme 16y ago
    don't make me flee the interview:-)

27 points by auxbuss 16y ago

I already found prions terrifying: incurable, nigh-indestructible, and not terribly difficult to ingest without knowing it. This just kicks it up a notch.

16s 16y ago
Nothing to be concerned about. How many people die of CJD every year? Not many. You should be afraid of cancer, car wrecks and heart disease, they kill more people in one week than CJD does in a decade.
- wglb 16y ago
  The thing about it that is frightening is that the length of time that it can take to manifest itself can be a very long time. Thus, it could be that already there are many many latent, slowly developing cases of nvCJD in our population.
  - jared314 16y ago
    Research into slow diseases always seem to get funding slowly.
    - wglb 16y ago
      Perhaps it is the airplane crash theory of giving impetus to research. Nobody, en masse, has yet died, so what is the problem.
      - Groxx 16y ago
        Well, there was that initial surge of public interest when the cause and breadth of mad cow disease was first publicized. I doubt many people think of it much any more, though. I think bird flu did it in.
- rflrob 16y ago
  You're absolutely right, and the time I spend worrying about any of these things is relatively low either way. As a moderately fit young adult with a good family medical history, only car wrecks are something that are reasonably likely to strike me in the next 10-20 years. That doesn't change the fact that, considering each on it's own, prions are scarier to me than the others. You're more likely to get kicked by a deer than eaten by a shark, but sharks are still scarier animals.
  - Groxx 16y ago
    >You're more likely to get kicked by a deer than eaten by a shark, but sharks are still scarier animals. That's a nice phrasing... especially accurate for people (like me) who live in / near deer'd areas and nowhere near shark-country. I'll have to remember it for later use :)
InclinedPlane 16y ago
A nearby supernova or more distant hypernova could bathe the entire Earth in lethal levels of neutrino radiation. There would be no way to shield yourself from it (they can penetrate through the entire Earth easily) and no way to prevent the death of all human beings alive. But it's unlikely. Better to concentrate on risks which are more relevant and more likely. Do you find driving or riding in an automobile terrifying? Eating a cheese burger? You're far more likely to die of heart disease or an automotive accident than prions or neutrino radiation.
- billswift 16y ago
  >lethal levels of neutrino radiation I doubt that is even physically possible. Neutrinos are nearly impossible to detect because they don't interact with normal matter. In fact, I'm not sure they interact with much of anything. Does anybody know if they do interact with any other elementary particles? Your point about concentrating on more likely risks is a good one though.
  - InclinedPlane 16y ago
    Yes, neutrinos are incredibly weakly interacting. However, Type II supernovae dump the vast majority (99%) of their energy into neutrino radiation. Moreover, the extremely high energies of supernova neutrinos (MeV range) increases their interaction cross-section as well as the damage they can do when they do interact. If a supernova (or hypernova) were to occur close enough to Earth it could cause a mass extinction due to neutrino radiation alone. Consider, supernova 1987A radiated so many neutrinos that it increased the neutrino flux at Earth by 10,000x compared to the Solar flux. That event happened in a neighboring galaxy 168,000 light-years away, an event a mere 20 light-years away would result in a neutrino flux 70 million times greater than that (700 billion times normal background levels). A hypernova would release over 100 times as much energy. Indeed, some researchers believe that some mass extinctions in Earth's past might be due to such events: http://lanl.arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/9505028 http://lanl.arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/9505028 Fortunately for us stars that would be both large enough to go supernova and close enough to present such a threat should be quite bright and thus very unlikely to have escaped our notice (hypernovae candidates as well, if we're lucky).

Groxx 16y ago

Isn't this worthy of a "duh"? I mean, seriously. A prion is a protein. Say you have a prion disease and you sneeze: it's now in the air, where it won't die if it dries out or is exposed to UV radiation like lots of non-air-traversing diseases. In the experiment: a mad-cow-disease-for-mice was aerosoled (sp?) at lab mice, and they're surprised it infected the mice through the nasal nerves, which are damn-near exposed directly to air. >"We were amazed at how efficiently they spread" The efficiency may be surprising. How can the spreading be? >The prions didn't need processing by the immune system first, as some other research has suggested Really? It's a protein! Sure, some could need processing by the immune system, or gastric acids, to change how they are shaped, but certainly not all. This being science, yes, it does need an experiment to show that it is so. I'm by no means arguing this is a superfluous use of funds. I'm arguing that believing otherwise and acting on it when designing your safety protocols is borderline gross negligence, and I wouldn't be surprised if it has killed someone already.

jacquesm 16y ago
Similar stupidity happened early on with HIV, especially dental procedures, I recall that there was a big stink about the aerosolized particles from the drill making it in to the suction tube and back out again when starting up the drill for the next patient. So now the whole assembly is replaced between patients instead of just the tips. It seemed rather obvious to me at the time. On the other hand, what's obvious in retrospect is not always obvious beforehand.
- Groxx 16y ago
  That one is a bit less obvious overall though, I'd argue. It's a suction tube; things coming out isn't what most people expect. But yes, it does seem obvious. But expecting proteins to somehow change when aerosoled? And this is well after when the resistances to radiation and chemicals of some of the nasty ones of these was known. Look at a steak. Smell the steak. You're sniffing entire steak proteins (not that that's the majority of the smell, of course). Why would prions be any different?
jforman 16y ago

ars 16y ago

Related: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/05/health/05pork.html?pagewanted=print http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/05/health/05pork.html?pagewan... http://www.naturalnews.com/022832.html http://www.naturalnews.com/022832.html

tptacek 16y ago
Interesting, but, not really related: yours is a story about an autoimmune disorder thought to be caused by forced aerosolization of pig brains during brain harvesting, and subsequent inhalation of those brain aerosols. That was a fun sentence to write.

jberryman 16y ago

Prion's are pretty amazing as examples of self-replication. The fact that they (and viruses) are considered "non-living" always seemed like an arbitrary distinction to me.

rdtsc 16y ago
As I already posted in a reply above, what makes prions so fascinating is that they are pure information. It is a mis-shaped protein and it is the particular state of it being mis-shaped that allows it to mis-shape other nearby proteins and transmit that state. I find that very interesting. It is akin to an cell automata -- a glider perhaps.

Cushman 16y ago

...aerosols containing as little as 2.5 per cent brain tissue from mice... 2.5 percent? As in 1 part in 40 tissue? Is that not as ridiculous as it sounds? Edit: Thinking on it, that probably means the suspension which was aerosolized rather than the aerosol itself, which explains the conclusion that 10% suspensions might be dangerous to handle. Is that normally how you measure aerosol concentration?

stretchwithme 16y ago

note to self: do NOT put mad cow victims in the wood chipper

rdtsc 16y ago
The heck do ya mean? ;-)
- stretchwithme 16y ago
  don't make me flee the interview:-)