When People Ate People, a Strange Disease Emerged
1–10 of 215 posts
Re: When People Ate People, a Strange Disease Emerged
#2Many 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.
Re: When People Ate People, a Strange Disease Emerged
#3I 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.
Re: When People Ate People, a Strange Disease Emerged
#4Many 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.
it'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/10.1080/19336896.2015.11...
Re: When People Ate People, a Strange Disease Emerged
#5Reminds me of a scene in the film Book of Eli, which, if you're a fan of Fallout, should watch.
Re: When People Ate People, a Strange Disease Emerged
#6I 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.
I'll probably pass on the Elk jerky on my next road trip through SW Colorado.
Re: When People Ate People, a Strange Disease Emerged
#7I 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.
It can happen anywhere at anytime, that's why it's so terrifying.
Re: When People Ate People, a Strange Disease Emerged
#8I 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.
What 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.
Re: When People Ate People, a Strange Disease Emerged
#9Is it certain this came from cannibalism and not infected pigs?
Re: When People Ate People, a Strange Disease Emerged
#10Can you be tested for prion disease?