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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

#191

Post by cmrdporcupine »

oblio wrote: post #106
ekianjo wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The first news about COVID were at the very end of december 2019 at least on mainstream media.

True, but between actually seeing the first news and figuring out: "Oh my God, this is going to be a global pandemic!", it took me a while. I think most people were in the same boat.

My wife had taken a couple infectious diseases courses as part of her anthropology degree so she was tuned into this whole thing and the first article she read about it end of December I remember her freaking out. "Oh, great, another SARS-type virus has been found, we're screwed" and me being like "honey, you're being paranoid. relax."

I hate it when she's right.

Re: Doctors investigate mystery brain disease in Canada

#192

Post by shkkmo »

fao_ wrote: post #174
iamthepieman wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm missing the reference to foot and mouth disease. FMD is a viral infection and is not caused by prions.

IIRC at the time the BSE outbreak in the UK[1] was referred to as "foot and mouth disease" and I've heard people refer to it as that since then. I wasn't even aware they were separate things. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_BSE_outbreak

There may have been some innacurate reporting, but FMD and BSE present very differently in humans so I doubt there was deep confusion.

Re: Doctors investigate mystery brain disease in Canada

#193

Post by wombatpm »

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…

Or could it be that we have it and don't know it. Alzheimer cases are growing as we remove other causes of death. Dementia is just accepted as a consequence of growing old. It not like we section every brain of an old person who dies.

We only noticed it on our farm animals because we brought the cycle time down as we fed downer cows to other cows as a source of protein

Re: Doctors investigate mystery brain disease in Canada

#194

Post by wombatpm »

stuff4ben wrote: post #148
ed25519FUUU wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there a blood test for that?

I don't think so. I believe it was a screening question. Which was odd since they allowed me to give blood at that time.

Well they got your sample for testing going forward.

Re: Doctors investigate mystery brain disease in Canada

#195

Post by jtdev »

NationalPark wrote: post #180
jtdev wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Considering the history of the USDA, I’m not okay with the USDA having final say in determining what I or my family put on the dinner table.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Department_of_Ag... This?

No, I'm referring to the regulatory capture and revolving door culture at USDA that has allowed Monsanto et. al., to douse your kids cereal with glyphosate, refuse hemp production in the U.S., water down the Organic Governance Board with corporate shills, etc., etc.

Re: Doctors investigate mystery brain disease in Canada

#196

Post by dqv »

paunstefan wrote: post #91
callamdelaney wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty sure I read a very accurate post on /r/wallstreetbets about covid-19 in late 2019/early 2020.

I remember someone made a joke about how there were pandemics in 1920, 1820 and 1720, and another user commented that there is a weird flu in some Chinese city. This was either in the last week of 2019 or very early 2020.

Yes I remember a friend who lives in Hong Kong posting a news article (from a Chinese news source) describing a "mystery pneumonia" the first or second week of December 2019. He hypothesized that it was because of bushmeat. I think the news article got scrubbed. I wish I had saved it.

Re: Doctors investigate mystery brain disease in Canada

#197

Post by LorenPechtel »

TearsInTheRain wrote: post #164
tauntz wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Prions terrify me as well because it seems like there's no stopping them.. > In 2015, researchers at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston found that plants can be a vector for prions. When researchers fed hamsters grass that grew on ground where a deer that died with chronic wasting disease (CWD) was buried, the hamsters became ill with CWD, suggesting that prions can bind to plants, which then ta…

Maybe this is a naive question, but your immune system works by identifying foreign proteins and killing those cells. Is there no way for your immune system to target cells contaminated with prions?

The fundamental issue with prions is that they are *not* foreign. Prions are legitimate proteins made by your own body but folded wrong. A misfolded protein acts like a catalyst to cause more misfolding. Prions are *not* alive, they have no ability to reproduce other than through misfolding existing proteins. It's basically a form of crystallization.

Re: Doctors investigate mystery brain disease in Canada

#198

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

Re: Doctors investigate mystery brain disease in Canada

#199

Post by Turing_Machine »

titanomachy wrote: post #183
TheGallopedHigh wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Insuflation: the act of blowing on or breathing on

In this case likely means inhalation through the nose

Yeah, the sense of smell is a basal one. The nasal cavity has bazillions of nerve endings that are almost directly wired to the brain.

That's why so many drugs are snorted. It works faster than just about anything else other than direct intravenous injection.

Re: Doctors investigate mystery brain disease in Canada

#200

Post by decasteve »

GioM wrote: post #115

The forests of New Brunswick are routinely sprayed with large amounts of glyphosphate herbicide. Is it possible that this is the cause, instead of prions? [1] https://www.conservationcouncil.ca/where-our-forest-is-being... [2] https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/liberals-greens... [3] https://nben.ca/en/component/tags/tag/glyphosate-ban [4] http://www.stopsprayingnb.ca/?page_id=118

A direct causal relationship is unlikely, however, the link between increased cyanobacteria in our waters and glyphosate spraying is possible and being studied elsewhere.

New Brunswick also carried on with heavy spraying of DDT into the 1980s stopping much later than most places.

There have been more diseased moose sightings in recent years too.

What about the possibility of contaminated seafood?

So many possibilities. Quite scary with no concrete answers.

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