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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

#171

Post by thehappypm »

robbiep wrote: post #167
throwaway316943 wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They can’t evolve independently but biological systems that produce proteins can evolve new proteins and new ways of manipulating proteins. A nightmare scenario would be a bacterial or viral mutation that produced a deadly prion.

A nightmare scenario for me is the creation of mRNA coding for a misfolded PRNP being weaponised.

I don't think you need to worry too much about that, honestly. as far as bioweapons go mRNA is pretty involved.. if you need to inject your victim, that's already way too complicated. bioweapons are much more oriented towards tainting water supplies or air.

Re: Doctors investigate mystery brain disease in Canada

#172

Post by macksd »

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.

I think there's a pretty fundamental difference between "allowing farms to police themselves" and actually prohibiting them from doing voluntary testing for diseases. I would compare it to the difference between eliminating a need for prescriptions and prohibiting people from getting screened for skin cancer on the regular.

Is there a better reason to prohibit voluntary testing than what is included in the article?

Re: Doctors investigate mystery brain disease in Canada

#173

Post by fao_ »

anotha1 wrote: post #101
fao_ wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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.

Re: Doctors investigate mystery brain disease in Canada

#174

Post by fao_ »

iamthepieman wrote: post #145
fao_ wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Bleach works as surface decontamination agent. They know it works for CWD, and I expect it works for others too. I remember reading that nothing but incineration would work in the context of Food-and-Mouth disease, but it seems modern techniques in brain surgery do use bleach. Interesting. Essentially, the only thing that works is disintegrating the prions. You can't wash them off, since you're simply washing them…

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

Re: Doctors investigate mystery brain disease in Canada

#175

Post by fao_ »

sokoloff wrote: post #130
fao_ wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Bleach works as surface decontamination agent. They know it works for CWD, and I expect it works for others too. I remember reading that nothing but incineration would work in the context of Food-and-Mouth disease, but it seems modern techniques in brain surgery do use bleach. Interesting. Essentially, the only thing that works is disintegrating the prions. You can't wash them off, since you're simply washing them…

For brain surgery, it seems like washing them off the implements and into the water cycle is still an enormous win in terms of risk.

I'm not sure you understand how irresponsible that is.

Re: Doctors investigate mystery brain disease in Canada

#176

Post by tremon »

saiya-jin wrote: post #151
tremon wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At most it might have been a precursor to SARS-Cov-2, but it's unlikely to be the same agent. We've seen how wildly virulent that variant is; there's no way I can see that that virus could have been found in the wild in a city like Beijing and not cause the same problems we saw in Wuhan two months later.

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 much easier to spread. My mind just has trouble imagining a model where a virus can lie pretty much dormant for half a year in different populations, and then surge in one place only and spread from there. That may well be a limitation of my mind, I simply don't see how that would work.

Re: Doctors investigate mystery brain disease in Canada

#177

Post by csharptwdec19 »

XorNot wrote: post #144
dcolkitt wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Conversely industrialized meat production is relatively recent, and so the volume of prion's being introduced into the environment is potentially much higher then the rate at which they are degrading naturally, not to mention the degree of regional cross-mixing of sources. Prion contamination can now be shipped around the world in about 24 hours, where it can enter new populations much more easily.

> regional cross-mixing of sources.

This is the part that worries me. If something happened like this even 300-400 years ago, it would probably just wipe out that village.

Re: Doctors investigate mystery brain disease in Canada

#178

Post by R0b0t1 »

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…

This is pretty messed up. As long as you meet legal requirements any additional testing should be permissible, caveat emptor.

Re: Doctors investigate mystery brain disease in Canada

#179

Post by sokoloff »

fao_ wrote: post #175
sokoloff wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For brain surgery, it seems like washing them off the implements and into the water cycle is still an enormous win in terms of risk.

I'm not sure you understand how irresponsible that is.

That might be. I'm not an expert.

Is it more irresponsible than not removing them prior to operating on someone's brain?

Re: Doctors investigate mystery brain disease in Canada

#180

Post by NationalPark »

jtdev wrote: post #159
reaperducer wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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?

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