France issues moratorium on prion research after fatal brain disease strikes

Post by LatteLazy » Wed, Jul 28, 2021, 2:04 PM UTC

ekianjo wrote: post #31

jamespwilliams wrote: post #17

Hm: "long period of uncertainty began on 31 May 2010, when she stabbed her left thumb with a curved forceps while cleaning a cryostat—a machine that can cut tissues at very low temperatures—that she used to slice brain sections from transgenic mice infected with a sheep-adapted form of BSE . She pierced two layers of latex gloves and drew blood" Later in the article: ""We conduct research only on mouse-adapted sheep…

"infect" is not the right word. Prions are not viruses, they do not replicate, they ravage other proteins in their surroundings by misfolding them over and over again until it becomes a fatal pathology.

Post by ekster » Wed, Jul 28, 2021, 2:08 PM UTC

ekianjo wrote: post #31

jamespwilliams wrote: post #17

Hm: "long period of uncertainty began on 31 May 2010, when she stabbed her left thumb with a curved forceps while cleaning a cryostat—a machine that can cut tissues at very low temperatures—that she used to slice brain sections from transgenic mice infected with a sheep-adapted form of BSE . She pierced two layers of latex gloves and drew blood" Later in the article: ""We conduct research only on mouse-adapted sheep…

"infect" is not the right word. Prions are not viruses, they do not replicate, they ravage other proteins in their surroundings by misfolding them over and over again until it becomes a fatal pathology.

Post by mschuster91 » Wed, Jul 28, 2021, 2:08 PM UTC

ekianjo wrote: post #35

chrbarrol wrote: post #23

Has there been any research on Prions as a bio-terrorism weapon? It sounds like you could infect thousands/millions and have a close to 100% death-rate without anyone noticing until many years after the contamination started. Imaging contaminating food/drinking water with the Prion which causes Kuru [1] for example. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuru_(disease)

if you want to kill lots people thats pretty much the worst way of doing it.

Post by emptyfile » Wed, Jul 28, 2021, 2:10 PM UTC

ekianjo wrote: post #40

tyingq wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's "effective" mean in this context? The anthrax letters in the US in 2001 certainly dominated news cycles.

And killed very few people. That's what we call terrorism (lots of news coverage for very few deaths) - it's not effective in doing anything but news cycles.

Post by fallingknife » Wed, Jul 28, 2021, 2:11 PM UTC

mschuster91 wrote: post #62

fallingknife wrote: post #42

> Jaumain’s family has filed both criminal charges and an administrative suit against INRAE, alleging a range of problems at Jaumain’s lab. She had not been trained in handling dangerous prions or responding to accidents and did not wear both metal mesh and surgical gloves, as she was supposed to, says Julien Bensimhon, the family’s lawyer. The thumb should have been soaked in a bleach solution immediately, which did…

> Why does every lab have to be shut down for 3 months? Auditing everyone and their processes takes a while.