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Prions

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Re: Prions

#81

Post by enchiridion »

im3w1l wrote: post #60
Ericson2314 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Most importantly, viruses and bacteria innately "want" to spread. Prions do not have any biological mechanism for their own propagation - they are just an unfortunate mistake of nature. And this seems to be key why there has never been a massive prion outbreak. I disagree here, and but it's not fatal to your argument. Anything that reliably reproduces "wants" to. Hell, I bet prions can evolve too on large enough ti…

In order to evolve there has to be some kind of genetic information passed on to descendants. But for prions there is no such mechanism. A lower energy state is assumed and that's that.

There does not have to be genetic information for evolution.

Evolution only requires "descent with modification". DNA is a mechanism for this, but it is not necessarily the only one.

Re: Prions

#82

Post by ipython »

813594 wrote: post #42
ipython wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The concerns about blood donations continue to this day. A few years ago I went to a blood bank event not even thinking about vCJD and was turned away because I happened to live in Europe for more than 6 months in the early 90s. It is a bit unnerving to know you may or may not have a disease that there is no test for, and symptoms may not appear until decades later.

You might want to check again to see if you’re eligible now. They ended some of these restrictions on blood donation in the summer of 2020.

Thanks! It appears that the new restrictions no longer apply to me. I’ll be off to give blood later this month.

Re: Prions

#84

Post by pm90 »

whatshisface wrote: post #67
xenadu02 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have no idea if US Beef is infected. The USDA prohibits anyone from testing their cows and ended their spot-testing program (which was a joke). So unlike Europe we never reckoned with the problem and don't know if it is currently spreading. For human exposure we would not yet be far enough along to know if the US Beef supply either is or was contaminated. Personally I have basically stopped eating beef for this re…

> The USDA prohibits anyone from testing their cows Huh? Why would they prohibit testing?

Because businesses don’t want to bear the loss (financial and likely reputational) of finding out that their beef contains prions.

Re: Prions

#86

Post by Igelau »

danesparza wrote: post #12
purpleflame1257 wrote: post #3

Counterpoint: The Fore people of NZ had kuru from ritual cannibalism. Then they stopped. Eventually, the disease stopped too. Prions are nasty, but we've had 3.5 billion years of protein folding and none of it has ended the world yet.

Agreed. Prions almost strike me as an interesting boundary condition for stupid behavior. But if most of the world's meat supply becomes effected by prion caused diseases (think: Chronic Wasting Disease https://www.cdc.gov/prions/cwd/index.html ) then I think we truly might be in a tight spot.

IIRC, BSE (Mad Cow) was spreading among cattle because the industry was using meat-and-bone feed from infected cattle. It was tainting the meat supply because captive-bolt guns spray more brain around than more traditional hammer-oriented methods of slaughtering beeves.

So yeah, cannibalism and brain spray. Stupid behaviors.

Re: Prions

#87

Post by incrudible »

xenadu02 wrote: post #44
incrudible wrote: post #16

I remember that in the 90s, when "mad cow disease" was dominating the headlines, it was predicted that there would be an exponential increase in cases, decades down the line. The same point about prions being virtually indestructible was being made, the same concerns about surgical equipment and blood donations were raised. Suffice it to say, the prion disaster did not materialize, so I'm skeptical about the same sto…

We have no idea if US Beef is infected. The USDA prohibits anyone from testing their cows and ended their spot-testing program (which was a joke). So unlike Europe we never reckoned with the problem and don't know if it is currently spreading. For human exposure we would not yet be far enough along to know if the US Beef supply either is or was contaminated. Personally I have basically stopped eating beef for this re…

It is estimated that hundreds of thousands of infected cattle entered the food chain in the 1980s. The total number of cases of vCJD is at less than 250 as of 2018.

Feeding practices that led to BSE have changed, the USDA is still testing for BSE, and if the disease was spreading, we'd probably notice it at some point.

Personally, I'd be far more worried about cattle farming practices spawning some sort of super-resistant flesh-eating bacteria than anything related to BSE.

Re: Prions

#88

Post by hourislate »

adrianN wrote: post #17
danesparza wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. Prions almost strike me as an interesting boundary condition for stupid behavior. But if most of the world's meat supply becomes effected by prion caused diseases (think: Chronic Wasting Disease https://www.cdc.gov/prions/cwd/index.html ) then I think we truly might be in a tight spot.

Luckily humans can survive quite well without any meat at all.

The article suggests it's transmissible through plants and even air. You can't even sterilize surgical equipment under normal protocol to kill them.

It is basically a juggernaut.

Re: Prions

#89

Post by [deleted] »

im3w1l wrote: post #60
Ericson2314 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Most importantly, viruses and bacteria innately "want" to spread. Prions do not have any biological mechanism for their own propagation - they are just an unfortunate mistake of nature. And this seems to be key why there has never been a massive prion outbreak. I disagree here, and but it's not fatal to your argument. Anything that reliably reproduces "wants" to. Hell, I bet prions can evolve too on large enough ti…

In order to evolve there has to be some kind of genetic information passed on to descendants. But for prions there is no such mechanism. A lower energy state is assumed and that's that.

[deleted]

Re: Prions

#90

Post by whatshisface »

pm90 wrote: post #84
whatshisface wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The USDA prohibits anyone from testing their cows Huh? Why would they prohibit testing?

Because businesses don’t want to bear the loss (financial and likely reputational) of finding out that their beef contains prions.

Thereby combining all of the potential isolated, individually bad disasters into one enormous fully-correlated watershed moment when all companies are simultaneously found to be selling prion-containing beef...
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