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Doctors investigate mystery brain disease in Canada

bbc.com

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Re: Doctors investigate mystery brain disease in Canada

#181

Post by tsimionescu »

anonymouse008 wrote: post #98
andy_ppp wrote: post #49

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. * please note I’ve had the first dose of Astra Zeneca and intend…

I’m wondering if the original Covid infection runs the risk for latent prion issues too — There’s just no reason for the mass hysteria from governments from what I’ve seen spread amongst my friends - and I run dangerously close to leaving the “anecdotal data gravity well” with how many observations I’ve tracked, deaths included. It felt like they were withholding some long term effects to keep everyone calm.

More people dead of Covid than TBC is not enough in your mind to make it a serious risk? How can you jump to prions (which no other viral disease has ever been known to cause) before simply looking at the massive death toll, despite the unprecedented restrictions?

Re: Doctors investigate mystery brain disease in Canada

#182

Post by nick_ »

tcbawo wrote: post #111

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 b…

I have read a couple of times that an HSV infection (super common) can get into the brain and cause dementia. Just trying to help here, but maybe they could try an HSV antiviral?

Re: Doctors investigate mystery brain disease in Canada

#183

Post by titanomachy »

TheGallopedHigh wrote: post #170
robbiep wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CWD was innoculated in a deer by insuflating prion bound with clay

Insuflation: the act of blowing on or breathing on

In this case likely means inhalation through the nose

Re: Doctors investigate mystery brain disease in Canada

#184

Post by titanomachy »

Metacelsus wrote: post #128
Xcelerate wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had read this before. It's horrifying. How do you stop the chain reaction of proteins folding into lower energy states? It's not like a bacteria or virus; it's more like ice-nine, except instead of water it's your brain.

Gene-drive to edit wild animals so that they don't express PRNP (or express a stabilized version)

Stabilized maybe, it’s probably necessary for something even if we don’t know what yet.

Re: Doctors investigate mystery brain disease in Canada

#185

Post by NoImmatureAdHom »

dcolkitt wrote: post #125
codingbeer wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whenever a topic about something that could potentially destroy humanity comes up (say, climate issues), there is always some comment that makes a reasonable argument of why things are not as bad as they seem. This never happens when prions are the topic.

The simplest counterpoint to prion cataclysm fear is that it hasn't happened yet. That implies a low chance that it'll happen anytime in the near future. There's no evidence that any significant human population has ever been wiped out by prions at any point in the history of the species. Heck, we haven't even observed widespread (>10% infected) prion disease in any species. At least with something like climate chang…

This is the right way to think about it. That said, a 1% infection rate that isn't at all a threat to the species given normal biological processes* will cause us to completely flip our shit. While we wouldn't be wiped out, everybody would be real upset for a long while. Look at COVID.

*Technology has given us things like nukes, so...could be harder to predict these days.

Re: Doctors investigate mystery brain disease in Canada

#186

Post by shkkmo »

reaperducer wrote: post #150
admash wrote: post #141

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. But the agency ruled that the BSE test was licensed only for "surveil…

Considering the history of the meat industry, I'm OK with not allowing the farms to police themselves.

That isn't what is happening. The USDA is prohibiting suplemental testing. The allegation is that this is because that might reveal cases of infection that would show the USDA testing policies are not sufficient.

Thus the USDA is placing their reputation over the health of US citizens.

Re: Doctors investigate mystery brain disease in Canada

#187

Post by Izkata »

fao_ wrote: post #99
anotha1 wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To save someone else the time, the "ice-nine" referred to in this comment is fictional .

To be fair, "Cat's Cradle" is a famous work of science-fiction

However, "ice IX" is real and distinct from "Ice-nine", so clarity is worthwhile.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_IX

Also I only know of Ice-nine because of fun facts like this, didn't even know the name of the story let alone have read it.

Re: Doctors investigate mystery brain disease in Canada

#188

Post by shkkmo »

fao_ wrote: post #173
anotha1 wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For which generation?

Are there many noteworthy modern science fiction authors that hold up to the Asimov / Clarke / Lem generation? I would think someone reasonably versed in science fiction would have at least heard of it -- I'm a "zoomer" and I have.

We have a number of very good modern science fiction authors that easily rival them. While none of them may be as iconic, I think that has more to do with competition in the genre and breadth of the market.

Re: Doctors investigate mystery brain disease in Canada

#189

Post by dannyw »

tremon wrote: post #176
saiya-jin wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are back-confirmed cases of covid in Italy in September 2019, so the Wuhan incident is definitely not a patient-0 situation (even if it could be a ground-0 location from previous patient-0 situation, but its just a guess and we'll never know). Given that, having a case in Beijing in November 2019 is entirely plausible

Following that train of thought, what changed between Italy/Beijing and Wuhan? Was it sheer luck that made the first major outbreak happen in Wuhan, and not in Milan or Beijing? Or Los Angeles for that matter, I think I heard reports of suspect pneumonia cases from the US as well? What I was alluding to with "precursor" was that it may have been the same virus, but that some mutation in Wuhan might have made it so mu…

If you have a deck with 2 hearts and 10 spades, your first flip could very well be a heart, even if with enough flips, 10/12 are spades.

What I mean by this is that viruses may have arbitrary behaviour when the infected population is small. Let's say as of September 2019, five people in the world were infected with COVID. It's actually not improbable or crazy that the epidemic outbreak only started in Dec/Jan.

Re: Doctors investigate mystery brain disease in Canada

#190

Post by Red_Leaves_Flyy »

XorNot wrote: post #166
Red_Leaves_Flyy wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have an example of such a chemical being used to effectively remediate prion contaminated environments?

Apparently not: I was thinking glutaraldehyde which is used for cleaning in hospitals but reading up the advice for prions is explicitly opposed to cross-linking agents. Which makes sense I guess but it's also scary.

You raised my hopes and dashed them exquisitely.

Until we have better, cheaper, and less error prone methods of remediating prion diseases they're the #1 fear on my biological apocalypse list.

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