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Doctors investigate mystery brain disease in Canada

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Re: Doctors investigate mystery brain disease in Canada

#241

Post by bigcorp-slave »

eganp wrote: post #221
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…

The risk of cow->human BSE transmission is infinitesimal. Species barriers in prions are surprisingly strong and, for practical purposes, nearly impermeable [0]. In fact, the Prion Protein (PrP) in humans causes multiple distinct diseases including CJD, Kuru, and FFI. Infectious prion confirmations are probably highly influenced by glycosylation [1,2]. Even if this testing wasn't god awfully slow, it's unclear one le…

What you are saying is dangerous. We had a serious set of exactly these transmission events in Britain only a few decades ago. Clearly the risk is not infinitesimal.

Re: Doctors investigate mystery brain disease in Canada

#242

Post by robbiep »

thehappypm wrote: post #171
robbiep wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I know a huge amount about the level of technical skill required to do something with mRNA. It’s involved today.

But in many ways it’s less technically involved than (re)creating the horse pox vaccine from scratch.

And in 20 years it could be as simple as something aerosolised (there are already research projects for nasal mRNA vaccines) we don’t know quite yet where this will all lead to - PRNP is small enough at 200-odd amino acids long that it can be easily encoded on mRNA and as a fucked up disease vector that’s surely worse than anything viral - a timebomb sitting in everyone’s bloodstreams waiting 5-50 years to go off

Re: Doctors investigate mystery brain disease in Canada

#243

Post by robbiep »

Turing_Machine wrote: post #199
titanomachy wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That’s not at all why drugs work quickly through the nose - it has absolutely nothing to do with nerve endings, it has everything to do with a large surface area of mucus membranes allowing quick uptake into the venous system.

Re: Doctors investigate mystery brain disease in Canada

#244

Post by intergalplan »

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.

The actual writing from a lot of the golden age and New Wave sci-fi authors is... OK at best, with a few exceptions (Bradbury's distinctively poetic and dreamlike prose, for example). Tons of modern sci-fi authors write stories with more literary merit, better clarity, better-conveyed action, more believable characters and dialog, and so on. The improvements there are really obvious when reading, say, an early 70s The Hugo Winners or collections of 1950s stories, and then a 90s The New Hugo Winners.

Whether their ideas and worlds stand up to Asimov and company, or happen to be appealing to a particular reader, is another matter, but the command of writing itself is overall better, I'd say. I don't think a modern author would have much luck getting novels or stories in major magazines published with Asimov-tier dialog & characterization, for example.

Plus those eras were full of tons of garbage, in addition to what we remember. New Wave (60s and 70s) in particular tended to some very special interests that I don't think have held up too well, with some exceptions. A lot of that era's stories are very in love with sex & drugs and not in a way that really translates into a good tale. Most of those aren't exactly well-beloved these days.

On the flip side, there are definitely some modern sci-fi authors that are among the most famous but have some serious problems putting together an entirely good novel. I'll refrain from naming names but among them is maybe the only author whose book has ever made me mad at them for wasting such a good idea, setting, and opening, by just having no damn follow-through and getting super lazy in the last 1/3 or so. They're probably a top-5 sci fi name, among active authors today. But I stand by the overall quality level being notably higher on at least some dimensions, and it's even true for that guy.

Re: Doctors investigate mystery brain disease in Canada

#246

Post by Teever »

littlestymaar wrote: post #235
Teever wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't see any justification for why humanity in 2021 is courting prion disaster to a greater degree than it was in 2000 BC. While the kinds of people who would fly planes into buildings, release nerve toxins in subway stations or club entire villages of outsiders to death have always existed the ability to research and manufacture prions did not exist in 2000BC. That combination of desire to destroy the world and…

Biotech as a whole and its misuse by fanatics (or public servants in states with dubious moral …) is a massive concern for the 21th century, but I don't really think prions deserve a special place in this list. There's way too much scary things in here (gene drive, artificial viruses, intentional smallpox spreading, etc.)

That may be the case but it's a different issue than "Why are prions more of a threat to humanity than they were 4k years ago?"

With that said I sort of disagree with you. Prions are particularly attractive to a hypothetical bioterrorist due to the difficulty in detecting them, their durability and also the delay on effects. As I said above, once you know you have a problem it will be too late.

Keep in mind these are just the prions that nature has produced. It is quite possible that humans are able to modify existing threatening prions or develop whole new classes of threatening prions that haven't developed in nature.

Overall I think the most effective strike from a bioterrorist won't come from a single attack vector but a well timed combination of vectors. We've seen how something as minor as COVID has taken all of our attention and resources, now imagine if a terrorist timed something like COVID with a follow up strike like prions.

Re: Doctors investigate mystery brain disease in Canada

#247

Post by jfengel »

rvba wrote: post #228
mannerheim wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an incomplete description of the USDA's rationale. Although I agree that there shouldn't be a ban on private testing, the USDA's position is that BSE testing is ineffective at the time most cows are slaughtered, and would therefore provide an unwarranted impression of safety. > NOT A FOOD SAFETY TEST > BSE tests are not conducted on cuts of meat, but involve taking samples from the brain of a dead animal to s…

Sounds like a way to not test anything at all. I really try to stay away from politics, but sounds as something made by some bribed political appointment.

I'm curious why you'd say that. It sounds to me like a bureaucrat pointing out a scientific fact about the testing.

I'm not an expert on testing for prions, but it doesn't surprise me that the test isn't good enough to pronounce an animal disease-free. And if that's correct, it's very much their purview to make it clear that advertising it as disease-free would be false.

Most of the work at US agencies is done by career employees who are largely insulated from changes at the top. Politics certainly happens, but rarely at the level of individual decisions like this.

Such agencies certainly aren't immune to regulatory capture, and it's conceivable that it's the case here. The scientists and bureaucrats who wrote that have likely worked with the cattle industry their whole careers, and have many personal contacts. Same for their bosses.

But this memo turns on a specific technical point. If the tests aren't good enough, then they're not good enough. It wouldn't take regulatory capture for them to reach that conclusion, and this memo is exactly how they'd say it. It's also what it could sound like if they were being influenced by industry, but I'd say that the burden of proof is on somebody making that claim.

Re: Doctors investigate mystery brain disease in Canada

#248

Post by throwaway_isms »

mannerheim wrote: post #201
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 an incomplete description of the USDA's rationale. Although I agree that there shouldn't be a ban on private testing, the USDA's position is that BSE testing is ineffective at the time most cows are slaughtered, and would therefore provide an unwarranted impression of safety. > NOT A FOOD SAFETY TEST > BSE tests are not conducted on cuts of meat, but involve taking samples from the brain of a dead animal to s…

The rational middle ground would be to allow the private testing, but regulate any advertising or marketing of the testing and/or results on the basis it would likely confuse the consumers. If the interest in private testing magically disappears, then the intent is clear and might be a valuable factor for the consumers who might reasonably conclude the private company only had interest in performing testing they knew or should have known was immaterial for the purposes of marketing the testing to consumers as though it were material.

Re: Doctors investigate mystery brain disease in Canada

#249

Post by TomSwirly »

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.

> Asimov / Clarke / Lem

Asimov's SF is, sadly, hard to read these days. Clarke has held up better but still a bit dated. Lem reads as fresh as ever, but he's not so well known.

(What happened to Bradbury and Heinlein?)

Gene Wolfe is only one generation younger than these guys, and he just died, but I consider him a better writer than all the others I mentioned except Lem.

Re: Doctors investigate mystery brain disease in Canada

#250

Post by TomSwirly »

wombatpm wrote: post #193
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…

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

What's this "we"? Some of us aren't going to get CJD because we aren't implicated in this whole cow-eating activity.
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