6 ms·

>A first case was diagnosed in 2015, according to the memo. Three years later, in 2019, 11 additional cases were discovered, with 24 more cases discovered in 20

by goda90 6y ago

>A first case was diagnosed in 2015, according to the memo. Three years later, in 2019, 11 additional cases were discovered, with 24 more cases discovered in 2020 and another six cases in 2021. Five people have died. So not 40 cases all at once in case anyone was worried.

thatguy0900 6y ago
That would probably be less worrying to me, would indicate whatever got them is now gone, right? Rather than it is something that has stuck around to poison more people within 5 years
- bawolff 6y ago
  Or it just takes a variable amount of time for symptoms to show up. (Wikipedia says kuro which is a prion disease can take up to 50 years! Although maybe thats related to immunity which seems irrelavent here)
  - thatguy0900 6y ago
    Didn't think about that, fair point
- JauntTrooper 6y ago
  If it's a prion disease, they sometimes take years or possibly decades to develop. The big question is how they were all infected. Is it in the food supply (meat, milk)? Was it tainted blood donations? 42 people is a lot of people... The vCJD outbreak in the 90s (mad cow) ended up with less than 250 cases total.
  - me_me_me 6y ago
    Jeez don't even suggest that. If that shit jumped to humans we are fucked. I'd rather not imagine how that would look like in comparison to covid
    - dwohnitmok 6y ago
      It already jumped to humans. Mad cow disease infects humans as well. The difference in infection levels is that mad cow disease is transmitted through ingestion, so the usual avenue for human-to-human transmission is cannibalism (see e.g. the outbreak of Kuru that resulted from ritual funerary cannibalism), which is rare. Animal-to-animal cannibalism in animal feed is more common.
      - subsubzero 6y ago
        I wonder if fully cooked meat can also transmit this disease? I know its big deal eating tainted meat as all hunters are encouraged to have the meat tested before consumption. there have been alot of deer that have been shown to have this disease.
        AnimalMuppet 6y ago
        Fully cooked meat can also transmit prion-based diseases, because cooking isn't hot enough to destroy the prions. IIRC, you need 1500 degrees (Fahrenheit, I think). Your stove or grill isn't going to get you there, no matter how thoroughly you cook the meat.
        seventytwo 6y ago
        Wouldn’t the deactivation temp depend on the prion?
        ruined 6y ago
        Sure, but most prion diseases are confirmed to be resultant from various misfolding of a single protein https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRNP https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRNP
        hinkley 6y ago
        Prions are why we use more disposable tools for surgeries instead autoclaving. Autoclaves aren’t hot enough to destroy the proteins.
  - droopyEyelids 6y ago
    Also, the prions themselves are not easily deactivated, and can linger in the environment, in an infectious state, for decades.
    - mod 6y ago
      In my area we have a prion disease called CWD in the whitetail deer population. There's basically no way to destroy them in the wild. You have to bleach or burn the wilderness. They've had some suspicions that the prion has infected humans, although I haven't read any updates to that in a couple of years. Many locals still don't get their kills checked, even though it's free. They just eat them. A lot of the logic is that it's been here a long time and they've probably already eaten it. Anyway, prions are the scariest thing I've heard of in a long time, because they don't even have an agenda.
      - blaser-waffle 6y ago
        Wow didn't realize how big that was in the Rockies, like Alberta Canada or Colorado. Both places I've lived and hunted in...
  - michael1999 6y ago
    We weren't cleanly segregating brain/spine tissue during meat processing in Canada until fairly recently. Given that CJD is only diagnosed by autopsy, I assume some fraction of dementia/Alzheimer's cases are actually prion diseases. And since we have no treatment, assigning liability is impossible, and it would destroy the beef industry, there's not much enthusiasm for learning more. The premier of Alberta was very clear: shoot, shovel, and shut up.
    - robbiep 6y ago
      Whilst the amyloid plaques in Alzheimer’s could be considered a type of protein disorder with similarities to prion diseases in that a protein is aggregating in clusters that the body is unable to clear and break down (difference being, it isn’t infectious in origin and a amyloid beta protein isn’t being changed by a misfolded protein of its own type) I don’t think there is any evidence to support your assumption that some fraction of dementia or Alzheimer’s presumptive disgnostic patients (Alzheimer’s also being largely a diagnosis enabled by autopsy, although there are scans that can show the amyloid plaques) because the diseases have quite different symptoms and courses. Whilst that can’t fully rule out unknown prion diseases out there, generally we would expect such a condition to manifest in a much broader section of the population than just ‘the elderly’ and when young people develop significant neurological symptoms there’s a huge amount of diagnostic effort that is put in to determining what is going on, because, you know, it might be a prion disease and generally it shouldn’t happen unless there is a genetic determinant or another cause, such as smoking adulterated drugs which was found to cause Parkinson’s in the 80’s [0], or in fact vCJD [0] https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/00000360.htm https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/00000360.htm
      - michael1999 6y ago
        You're right that young people are investigated, and we don't see broad infection. I was thinking of causes for geriatric CJD, rather than vCJD. I'm skeptical of claims that geriatric declines are fully investigated. But the UK spike from contaminated food was very clear, and we don't see anything similar. Unless there's some low-level exposure the body can resist and a weakening blood-brain barrier/stroke/etc allows infection. But that's just speculation. Cheers.
- molticrystal 6y ago
  One of the problems with prions is they tend to be very stable and stick around in the environment for a long time, even resiting heat, cold, and persisting for years in soil. To add on to that, when active in a human being, they can take a very long time to get to a point where symptoms emerge.
yumraj 6y ago
> So not 40 cases all at once in case anyone was worried Yep, not connected to the mRNA vaccines. :)

by goda90 6y ago

thatguy0900 6y ago

That would probably be less worrying to me, would indicate whatever got them is now gone, right? Rather than it is something that has stuck around to poison more people within 5 years

bawolff 6y ago
Or it just takes a variable amount of time for symptoms to show up. (Wikipedia says kuro which is a prion disease can take up to 50 years! Although maybe thats related to immunity which seems irrelavent here)
- thatguy0900 6y ago
  Didn't think about that, fair point
JauntTrooper 6y ago
If it's a prion disease, they sometimes take years or possibly decades to develop. The big question is how they were all infected. Is it in the food supply (meat, milk)? Was it tainted blood donations? 42 people is a lot of people... The vCJD outbreak in the 90s (mad cow) ended up with less than 250 cases total.
- me_me_me 6y ago
  Jeez don't even suggest that. If that shit jumped to humans we are fucked. I'd rather not imagine how that would look like in comparison to covid
  - dwohnitmok 6y ago
    It already jumped to humans. Mad cow disease infects humans as well. The difference in infection levels is that mad cow disease is transmitted through ingestion, so the usual avenue for human-to-human transmission is cannibalism (see e.g. the outbreak of Kuru that resulted from ritual funerary cannibalism), which is rare. Animal-to-animal cannibalism in animal feed is more common.
    - subsubzero 6y ago
      I wonder if fully cooked meat can also transmit this disease? I know its big deal eating tainted meat as all hunters are encouraged to have the meat tested before consumption. there have been alot of deer that have been shown to have this disease.
      - AnimalMuppet 6y ago
        Fully cooked meat can also transmit prion-based diseases, because cooking isn't hot enough to destroy the prions. IIRC, you need 1500 degrees (Fahrenheit, I think). Your stove or grill isn't going to get you there, no matter how thoroughly you cook the meat.
        seventytwo 6y ago
        Wouldn’t the deactivation temp depend on the prion?
        ruined 6y ago
        Sure, but most prion diseases are confirmed to be resultant from various misfolding of a single protein https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRNP https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRNP
        hinkley 6y ago
        Prions are why we use more disposable tools for surgeries instead autoclaving. Autoclaves aren’t hot enough to destroy the proteins.
- droopyEyelids 6y ago
  Also, the prions themselves are not easily deactivated, and can linger in the environment, in an infectious state, for decades.
  - mod 6y ago
    In my area we have a prion disease called CWD in the whitetail deer population. There's basically no way to destroy them in the wild. You have to bleach or burn the wilderness. They've had some suspicions that the prion has infected humans, although I haven't read any updates to that in a couple of years. Many locals still don't get their kills checked, even though it's free. They just eat them. A lot of the logic is that it's been here a long time and they've probably already eaten it. Anyway, prions are the scariest thing I've heard of in a long time, because they don't even have an agenda.
    - blaser-waffle 6y ago
      Wow didn't realize how big that was in the Rockies, like Alberta Canada or Colorado. Both places I've lived and hunted in...
- michael1999 6y ago
  We weren't cleanly segregating brain/spine tissue during meat processing in Canada until fairly recently. Given that CJD is only diagnosed by autopsy, I assume some fraction of dementia/Alzheimer's cases are actually prion diseases. And since we have no treatment, assigning liability is impossible, and it would destroy the beef industry, there's not much enthusiasm for learning more. The premier of Alberta was very clear: shoot, shovel, and shut up.
  - robbiep 6y ago
    Whilst the amyloid plaques in Alzheimer’s could be considered a type of protein disorder with similarities to prion diseases in that a protein is aggregating in clusters that the body is unable to clear and break down (difference being, it isn’t infectious in origin and a amyloid beta protein isn’t being changed by a misfolded protein of its own type) I don’t think there is any evidence to support your assumption that some fraction of dementia or Alzheimer’s presumptive disgnostic patients (Alzheimer’s also being largely a diagnosis enabled by autopsy, although there are scans that can show the amyloid plaques) because the diseases have quite different symptoms and courses. Whilst that can’t fully rule out unknown prion diseases out there, generally we would expect such a condition to manifest in a much broader section of the population than just ‘the elderly’ and when young people develop significant neurological symptoms there’s a huge amount of diagnostic effort that is put in to determining what is going on, because, you know, it might be a prion disease and generally it shouldn’t happen unless there is a genetic determinant or another cause, such as smoking adulterated drugs which was found to cause Parkinson’s in the 80’s [0], or in fact vCJD [0] https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/00000360.htm https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/00000360.htm
    - michael1999 6y ago
      You're right that young people are investigated, and we don't see broad infection. I was thinking of causes for geriatric CJD, rather than vCJD. I'm skeptical of claims that geriatric declines are fully investigated. But the UK spike from contaminated food was very clear, and we don't see anything similar. Unless there's some low-level exposure the body can resist and a weakening blood-brain barrier/stroke/etc allows infection. But that's just speculation. Cheers.
molticrystal 6y ago
One of the problems with prions is they tend to be very stable and stick around in the environment for a long time, even resiting heat, cold, and persisting for years in soil. To add on to that, when active in a human being, they can take a very long time to get to a point where symptoms emerge.

yumraj 6y ago

> So not 40 cases all at once in case anyone was worried Yep, not connected to the mRNA vaccines. :)