This item appeared in /The Lancet/ on Sat. and was passed along to me
by John Stauber of PRWatch.
Thought it might interest you prion-watchers and observers of
evolutionary biology. Will be interesting to see what kind of
response this item gets in /Lancet/ from other readers.
The item that follows it, from the /Electronic Telegraph/, offers
context on the /Lancet/ piece.
I keep thinking of Bill Cosby's line, from a stand-up routine in the
60s, about certain delicacies in Philly, including scrambled calves'
brains: "Nuh uh. I never eat anything that somebody else used to
think with."
peace
misha
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
VARIANT CREUTZFELDT-JAKOB DISEASE
July 24, 1999
Lancet 1999; 354: 317-23
John Collinge
MRC Prion Unit and Department of Neurogenetics, Imperial College School
of Medicine at St Mary's, London, UK, and Department of Neurology, St
Mary's Hospital, London (Prof J Collinge FRCP)
It is clear that the prion strain causing bovine spongiform encephalopathy
(BSE) in cattle has infected human beings, manifesting itself as a novel
human prion disease, variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CjD). Studies of
the incubation periods seen in previous epidemics of human prion disease
and of the effect of transmission barriers limiting spread of these
diseases between species, suggest that the early variant CJD cases
may have been exposed during the preclinical phase of the BSE
epidemic.
It must therefore be considered that many cases may follow from later
exposure in an epidemic that would be expected to evolve over
decades. Since the number of people currently incubating this disease
is unknown, there are concerns that
prions might be transmitted iatrogenically via blood transfusion, tissue
donation, and, since prions resist routine sterilisation, contamination of
surgical instruments. Such risks remain unquantified. Although variant CJD
can be diagnosed during life by tonsil biopsy, a prion-specific blood test
is needed to assess and manage this potential threat to public health. The
theoretical possibility that BSE prions might have transferred to other
species and continue to present a risk to human health cannot be excluded
at present.
WARNING OF MAJOR CJD EPIDEMIC
July 23, 1999
The Electronic Telegraph
ISSUE 1519
Roger Highfield, Science Editor
Prof John Collinge of St Mary's Hospital, London, a member of the
Government's Spongiform Encephalopathy Advisory Committee, was cited as
writing in the Lancet Friday that a major epidemic of new variant CJD
remains a strong possibility. He greets the recent
optimism that the human BSE epidemic may be levelling out with caution,
given that it has been only three years since new variant CJD was
recognised.
Prof Collinge is pessimistic because he estimates the incubation time for
the disease - the time between infection with BSE and the development of
the devastating brain disease CJD - is probably a matter of decades rather
than years. Studies of related spongiform diseases, such as kuru, suggest
incubation periods of up to 40 years.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Michele Gale-Sinex
Communications manager
Center for Integrated Ag Systems, UW-Madison
http://www.wisc.edu
UW voice mail: 608-262-8018
Home office: 415-504-6474 (504-MISH)
Home office fax: Same as above, phone first for enabling
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