Twice as many vCJD carriers as thought.....

[Clinton Huxley]

Surprised Scrumple isn't all over this.....a new estimate of the number of carriers of vCJD in Blighty, based on tests done on tissue samples taken from appendix operations, shows that twice as many people as thought, up to 1 in 2000, could be carriers of the vCJD prion. It is not known how many of these would ever develop symptoms but it is a poor look-out if you do, as there is no cure.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-24525584

[klr]

Surprised Scrumple isn't all over this.....a new estimate of the number of carriers of vCJD in Blighty, based on tests done on tissue samples taken from appendix operations, shows that twice as many people as thought, up to 1 in 2000, could be carriers of the vCJD prion. It is not known how many of these would ever develop symptoms but it is a poor look-out if you do, as there is no cure.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-24525584

On a more serious note, it was probably not properly tested for before now.

[cronus]

You'll all die in the post dollar crash famine before this is anything to worry about.

[Azathoth]

So 0.05% carry the prion and of those a much smaller amount will actually develop the disease. Around 2 deaths a year from it. Fuck all to worry about. Good old sensational journalism.

[pErvinalia]

What's vCJD? Does it have a common name?

[klr]

What's vCJD? Does it have a common name?

"Let Google be your friend ..."

[cronus]

What's vCJD? Does it have a common name?

Republican Disease

[Clinton Huxley]

Gummer's Folly. Mad Thatcher Disease.

[Tyrannical]

So 0.05% carry the prion and of those a much smaller amount will actually develop the disease. Around 2 deaths a year from it. Fuck all to worry about. Good old sensational journalism.

Yeah, and I bet they catch most to all the deaths through an autopsy. If the infected is only about 1 out of 1000 carriers, the disease may be linked but not directly caused by the prions.

[mistermack]

What's vCJD? Does it have a common name?

Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease is CJD, it's a disease that causes dementia among other things. vCJD is a variant, that you can catch from eating beef from cattle that have mad-cow disease.

I don't know if you can pass it on to your children, but some versions of CJD are hereditary.

Mad cow disease is BSE, and cows got it through being fed protein pellets that included material from infected sheep, including brains and spinal cord matter. The infectious agent is a prion, which is a rogue protein. It can survive many normal sterilisation methods, such as high temperatures and chemicals.

If one person in 2,000 are carrying the prion, I don't know what proportion will get the disease. It's not going to be anything like 100% because it has a long incubation period, and the one-in-2,000 figure is got by testing samples from otherwise healthy people having their appendix removed. The end total of people who actually die from it will probably be in the hundreds, rather than thousands.

[pErvinalia]

What's vCJD? Does it have a common name?

"Let Google be your friend ..."

Please don't make me have to repeat that I am on dial up, and that nothing on the net other than phpBB forums works.

[Clinton Huxley]

What's vCJD? Does it have a common name?

"Let Google be your friend ..."

Please don't make me have to repeat that I am on dial up.

Ooh, are you on dial-up?

[pErvinalia]

What's vCJD? Does it have a common name?

Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease is CJD, it's a disease that causes dementia among other things. vCJD is a variant, that you can catch from eating beef from cattle that have mad-cow disease.

I don't know if you can pass it on to your children, but some versions of CJD are hereditary.

Mad cow disease is BSE, and cows got it through being fed protein pellets that included material from infected sheep, including brains and spinal cord matter. The infectious agent is a prion, which is a rogue protein. It can survive many normal sterilisation methods, such as high temperatures and chemicals.

If one person in 2,000 are carrying the prion, I don't know what proportion will get the disease. It's not going to be anything like 100% because it has a long incubation period, and the one-in-2,000 figure is got by testing samples from otherwise healthy people having their appendix removed. The end total of people who actually die from it will probably be in the hundreds, rather than thousands.

So basically as long as we don't start cannibalising each other, we should be fine?

[mistermack]

So basically as long as we don't start cannibalising each other, we should be fine?

It's probably better if we don't.

Having said that, I would like to know exactly what they are doing with the brains and nerve tissue from sheep and cows these days. It's not like industry to waste anything that they can make money from.
There SHOULD be a law saying that it all has to be incinerated, but I haven't heard what they actually do with it all.

[JimC]

So basically as long as we don't start cannibalising each other, we should be fine?

It's probably better if we don't.

Having said that, I would like to know exactly what they are doing with the brains and nerve tissue from sheep and cows these days. It's not like industry to waste anything that they can make money from.
There SHOULD be a law saying that it all has to be incinerated, but I haven't heard what they actually do with it all.

If, along with other animal waste, it was put through a methane digester, you would get methane, and a valuable fertiliser as well; I would be fairly certain that no dangerous prions would survive the bacterial decomposition...