Comments on: Two Cases of Rare Brain Disease in Calif.

By: Sophia

Sophia — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 19:06:49 +0000

Wow, I can’t believe this! My mother is currently in the hospital and has been their since 11/24/11(thanksgiving day) Her doctors have diagnoised her with CJD, but I just don’t understand how they can diagnoise her with a disease that they cannot confirm 100% for sure. The doctors have been asking my family to come to terms with this and let my mother go but we just can’t because they can’t even tell us that this is what she has 100% and it’s unbelievable to me that they can diagnoise her with this CJD when they can’t even tell us that without a doubt this is what she has.

By: Rog

Rog — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 11:45:13 +0000

They know where this originated and how. A big American company developed an Organo-phosphate to counter the Warble fly! They then tried to sell it when farmers were not buying it up fast enough they lobbied governments to make it mandatory! They succeeded a bit better in Europe and the UK even made it Compulsory! They poured this toxic concoction on the backs of cattle which went right through the skin. The cattle became sick and even though not sold for consumption if known to be sick they were rendered into the feed for the same animals! So that non sick animals became sick from therefore escalating the epidemic! Many countries who used this Organo phosphate suffered the same problem USA is the only country who does NOT test! So they don’t have it! LOL. France Switzerland Ireland etc, were not forced to use it,so few did and therefore they had fewer cases! Most farmers were required to treat their cows’ spines and skulls with Phosmet, an organophosphate pesticide. Since the USA uses more organophspahte pesticde it is most certainly thee most contaminated in the world. But its NOT testing and not saying anything keeping all dumbed down!

By: Amy

Amy — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 05:57:30 +0000

One of the people in this story is my husband’s aunt. Not the one they actually named. She passed away last week. They don’t know where/how she got it.

By: Rick

Rick — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 05:41:42 +0000

Creuzfeldt-Jakob disease isn’t contagious, which is why when they conduct a postmortem on a person suspected of it, they use space suits, they use a specific set of tools that are considered permanently contaminate with CJD, and the tissue samples are burned in a furnace and none of the slides nor containers are reused.

By: Colin Howell

Colin Howell — Sat, 11 Feb 2012 18:47:21 +0000

D. Friedrich asked “If this is not contagious, then why would we be told to throw every piece of equipment away used on the patient?” Well, “contagious” usually means via ordinary human contact, which doesn’t involve transferring the contents of someone’s brain matter. Even the most unusual human sexual practices don’t go that far. But it could happen if you reused brain surgical equipment contaminated by prion material. Something like this happened in the case of the prion disease known as “kuru” which afflicted a tribe in Papua New Guinea. In that case the prions were passed from person to person because the tribe practiced ritual cannibalism, in which they would eat their own dead to keep the deceased person’s “life force” within the local settlement.

By: Colin Howell

Colin Howell — Sat, 11 Feb 2012 18:18:18 +0000

I wanted to correct a statement posted by “Karina”, who claimed that prions “are a life form in themselves”. That’s not true; the problem is that prions are *not* a life form, and thus cannot be killed, because they aren’t living in the first place. What they are is an alternative form of specific protein molecules. Protein molecules are large, complex structures which gain much of their function from their shape, which is determined by how they are folded. For some types of proteins, there is an alternative folding and shape which is more stable but less functional, and this form can actually force other molecules of the same protein to also assume this folding simply by running into them. It’s a chain reaction, so that by introducing a few protein molecules with the prion shape into a large set of protein molecules with the usual shape, the entire set can be converted fairly rapidly into the prion shape. If that happens in a living organism, the consequences can be disastrous. Since the prion form of the molecules is more stable than the normal form, the usual methods of disinfecting equipment by heat or chemical attack are unlikely to work. Of course the molecules, like any molecules, can be destroyed if you try hard enough, but it’s apparently considered easier and safer to throw contaminated equipment away than to try to decontaminate it.

By: amn

amn — Sat, 11 Feb 2012 17:57:15 +0000

If these prions are, indeed, a life form unto themselves, can’t they be isolated from brain tissue removed during surgery on CJD victims to be studied? Various viruses and bacteria harmful to human and other life forms on planet Earth have been isolated, studied and ways are discovered to combat or neutralize them. The relative rarity of CJD and prions seem to me to make them a candidate for genetic alteration, or introducing an enzyme which would inhibit prions’ ability to reproduce and/or cause them to self-destruct.

By: James

James — Sat, 11 Feb 2012 15:32:37 +0000

What about the cancer drug that has been shown to reverse alzheimers in mice? Is it applicable in these cases?

By: Tom

Tom — Sat, 11 Feb 2012 05:10:22 +0000

i wrote a longer piece just now which your bot screwed up, BUT the point is that there has been about seventeen known cases of CJD in Sonoma and Marin county in,I believe, the last 5 years. there is something going on there. when I read the headline,I knew where they were talking about. this is indeed a “Cluster”. lots of Dairy and “Artisan” beef producers in Southern Sonoma county.

By: Tom

Tom — Sat, 11 Feb 2012 05:01:06 +0000

I’m from Sonoma county,just next door to Marin. While CJD is rare, It is not in this Area. A local paper last year printed a story about how there seems to be a cluster in this part of NorCal. There has been around 17 cases in the past 5 years. My Mother’s dear friend died in the late 80′s of CJD and at the time we speculated she came down with it due to her extensive travel in Britain. When I read the headline on this story I instinctively knew it was either Sonoma or Marin county they were referring to. Lots of Dairy farms and “artisan” beef in southern Sonoma county…It should be up to the CDC to investigate whats going on there.