#vcjd

[oh-yes-i-did-not]

Okay so for those either too young to remember or who were alive during but it never really affected them based on where they lived, Mad Cow Disease

Mad Cow Disease was thing in the late 80′s and the entire 90′s, all the way to early 00′s and it was an international scare. Like, we had disinfecting stations on international airports because of it.

It was a virus passed from animals to humans and this didn’t happen somewhere random in Asia, where, idk, bats and pigs interact and infect the food chain, but in Europe. In UK to be precise.

It affected only cows at first and only agriculture paid any attention, since any animal infected needed to be put down. Like no shit, those animals couldn’t even walk with how bad they were shaking and if you want to google this, be prepared. It doesn’t look nice, it looks ugly and horrifying and it will likely traumatize someone.

And the mode of transfer was not evident. There are videos and photos, showing cow carcasses being burned and someone trying to claim that was early days but that was very much not the reality in the beginning. In fact, all the research showed it is not possible for Mad Cow Disease to infect humans. In fact2, a similar disease was already known in lambs for decades and that one could not infect humans, so it was a no brainer to say, a similar disease in cows can also NEVER infect humans, so no precautions with the carcass needed.

But the thing is, how we processed meat had changed drastically between the lambs being a stable, grown at home meat, and then cows, or beef, becoming dominant with supermarkets. This is basically the “you see this, this is animal paste from a teletubby machine” video, except the paste wasn’t fed to humans. It’s known as meat and bone meal and it was all the leftover stuff from abattoirs, ground up and fed back to the animals as valuable protein.

You might see where this is going.

So let’s talk about prion diseases.

Well, as much as I, a random person know about them. Prions are proteins and proteins are not DNA or RNA, which are most likely familiar to anyone who has googled Covid, or any novel corona viruses in general. They’re the viruses a vaccine is made for.

Prion diseases are, in fact, mostly known because of cannibalism. Kuru is a famous disease among one specific tribe on Pacific Islands, caused by their tradition of consuming their relatives flesh after death. In fact, I just fact checked on which ocean and was told that the Kuru was mainly affecting kids and women because the men ate limbs and muscles and women and kids got the brain and basically all the best, fatty parts. Which, ironically, carried the disease.

And yes, in any survivalist culture fat, innards, and cartilage and the “bad parts” are the best because they contain the most nutrients so no, you do no get to twist this into the men taking the best, so fuck of terfs. This post is not for you.

Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease was already known by the time of Mad Cow Disease, it was a brain destroying disease affecting the elderly population. Mad Cow became variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease, or vCJD and was picked up because it mainly affected the young.

And in case you didn’t get it already, the link was infected cow carcasses being processed to meat and bone meal to be fed back to cows, because infected prion diseases spread through cannibalism. Or more specifically, spine and brain stem.

(so you’re relatively safe eating just the thigh or any muscle tbh)

So in the end, Mad Cow Disease didn’t kill that many people, only few hundreds, if I recall correctly.

But the thing that was found out about the prion diseases because of Kuru was that while some people exhibited symptoms and died really early, most had an incubation period of DECADES, aka 50 years. So the inevitable conclusion about vCJD is that it has only claimed it’s first victims and that majority are still waiting to appear and die.

Because the thing about prion diseases? There is currently no cure. And the fact that no one seems to remember this and that there is no awareness of it is not helping.

[292-ludovica]

are there like. neuropathologists/epidemiologists specialising in proteopathies on here

I crave Information

[i-shall-not-show-mercy]

Hello, I know you'll probably won't see this.

In the case that you do see this, thank you. You don't know what relief this gives me, from a person in the US. Me and my sister had heard about the disease. When I did some surface level research, I kept on getting conflicting answers, like:

"Your risk of getting vCJD from animal rennet is extremely low" and "Animal rennet is a risk if it comes from a BSE infected animal".

I just needed an answer on whether or not I should tread carefully for the rest of my life. Thank you so much for your response.

I do see this. You're very welcome darling.

Although both statements are true, they are missing critical information about the processing of the rennet and the realistic incidence of BSE infected animals (in modern farming, virtually 0). Always think big picture.

You have to understand that BSE happens naturally only in older individuals. Sadly or fortunately depending on how you look at it, no farm animal lives long enough to naturally develop it 😔😔

Also. Piece of advice. If you worry about some sanitary/health issue. Don't do surface research. You'll only find alarming titles. Reach out to appropriate professionals and health systems. We are here to answer questions.

If you have the education/training to do so, do go in depth. Don't stick to surface research. Best option is to talk to a specialist if possible but second best is to read scientific papers IN DEPTH. Understand the data. Focusing on epidemiology and transmission (look at the dates. VERY IMPORTANT. if the issue was 40 years ago, why worry?).

You don't need to read papers about the disease itself. It might create distress from lack of full understanding (unless you're a biologist in the infectious field).

Simple headlines can be misleading. Us scientists write for each other. We need catchy titles. But we also know to take them with a grain of salt. Nothing is black and white.

Be mindful that scary information you can see on the internet can be outdated or truncated.

[givingyouarandompathogen]

Pathogen assigned: BSE prion

Cause of Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy/Mad cow disease/Variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, a type of infectious protein called a prion

(Image credits: https://pixels.com/featured/bse-causing-prion-alfred-pasiekascience-photo-library.html)

Spread via: Consumption of contaminated substance/Genetic inheritence

I don't know if this blog is prion propaganda per say, but boy these things would give me every prion disease in existence

as impressive as it would be for you to get one of the versions of prion disease that exists in non-human mammals, prions are actually incredibly stable, which i think may be more than we can say about the structure of these peptonominations.

letter sequence in this ask matching protein-coding amino acids:

Idntknwifthislgisprinprpagandapersaytythesethingswldgivemeeveryprindiseaseineistence

protein guy analysis:

it may not be a prion, but this protein still looks deeply upsetting. there are side chains coming unacceptably close together, and at one point the loops are shown to intersect with each other. i have generally been using ChimeraX to look at these structures, but i was having a hard time figuring out how to measure the distances between some of the more concerning atoms. this is something i know how to do on PyMol, so i thought i could just switch softwares and figure it out easily. unfortunately, PyMol had a different strategy for showing the very close together side chains, and simply decided to represent them as being covalently bonded to each other. so, now you get to see some cursed looking new bonds being made!

predicted protein structure:

cartoon representation

side chains as seen on ChimeraX

side chains as seen on PyMol

(the reason they don't entirely match is because one is more zoomed in and they are from slightly different angles)

[an-organized-confusion]

Because med nerd (and watching a video about BSE)...

So. I called the zombie infection in the iZombie AU “ζvCJD-21“.

Just to break that down - the “vCJD“ part is named after “Variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease“ AKA “mad cow disease“.

“ζ“ is the lowercase Greek letter “zeta“... because zombies.

Aaand I think you get the naming convention behind the “...D-21“ part. (Outbreak was discovered that year, in this AU.)

But circling back on the main chunk... something I’ve HCd about the zombie infection here... is that if there is a cure to the infection, that it would still leave a sort of spongiform pattern of permanent damage in the brain. But here, specifically, the parts that process taste/smell. (Some can be compensated from rewiring/plasticity, but not 100%.)

(Though if the zombie progresses past Full Romero, the damage is more... diffuse and everywhere. If they stay fed, the agent behind the infection is stopped/slowed from progressing.)

If Logan has the opportunity to do autopsy on a zombie - that can be the histological findings (under the microscope) in their brain tissue.

(Just thinking of the implications for Team Z here - Janus, Virgil, the twins... and later, unfortunately, the twins’ parents.)

[catboymoments]

sorry to go all um actually on the fun death headcanon, but there’s not actually much evidence that cwd-infected venison causes vCJD, even though it and BSE are in the same category of prion diseases, there’s just not enough literature to say conclusively that cwd and vCJD are linked.

(extra bonus fun fact, cwd is mostly concentrated within the central nervous system, so if you have a cwd infected deer, if you just avoid the brain and spinal cord you’re pretty much fine to eat it)

Oh this is true but Alastor is a freak

[catgirlwerewolf]

i hate the texture of red meat but i still eat beef in hopes of breaking the uk's 8 year winning streak of no vcjd deaths

[strongermonster]

oh shit. niche post to care about, but canada lifted the blood donation ban on people who visited/were from the uk/ireland/france in the 80's and 90's? i didn't know that, that's so awesome

(november/december 2023)

for context:

"It’s [the ban lift] the result of an update to blood donation eligibility criteria related to variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD), the human variant of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) ― commonly known as ‘mad cow’ disease. Earlier eligibility criteria prevented people from donating blood, plasma or platelets in Canada if they had lived or spent time in the United Kingdom in the years 1980-1996, or in the Republic of Ireland or France in the years 1980-2001."

this also comes a bit over a year after the lifting of the gay male blood ban in canada as well.

wonderful news considering canada's ongoing blood donation shortages :)

[tanadrin]

based on Maintenance Phase’s short history of the British BSE outbreak, it seems pretty interesting as a situation where basically nobody did anything wrong, but something bad and difficult to foresee still happened

the feeding of bone and organ protein to animals seems basically unproblematic to me. so long as you’re going to eat meat, it seems more environmentally and ethically responsible to get the maximum benefit from each animal you slaughter

CJD-type prion diseases were known in animals before, including i think BSE, but it was long believed that they simply couldn’t cross from one species to another. and not without reason: humans had been eating sheep with scrapie for centuries with no ill health effects, and even transmitting the disease from one animal to another seemed to require a pretty substantial exposure

the UK had been feeding cows protein rendered from cows for a long time with no major problems; as certain protein and tallow-rendering processes got more consolidated over time, small changes in the industrial process that enabled a switch from batch production to continuous production of the protein meal, that had (possibly unbeknownst to anyone? this part wasn’t super clear) been protecting against the spread of BSE stopped working. but based on what we knew about prion diseases in the 80s, this shouldn’t have mattered anyway

except that BSE seems to be uniquely transmissible. even then, it seems to require a certain genetic vulnerability in humans; not everyone is equally susceptible. and it’s not like every burger in the UK was contaminated: the grand total of recorded cases in the UK is 178. unfortunately vCJD, the human form of BSE, is 100% fatal

the British government response could have been better--but it was in line with the general scientific consensus (which was wrong!) in the 80s that this was mostly an agricultural issue, not a public health problem, and the long incubation period made it hard to notice when the disease jumped to humans

tabloids got it right a little bit earlier, and freaked out, but the british tabloids turn everything into a frothing moral panic; this is more a case of a stopped clock being right twice a day than accurate interpretation of the science

and in the real story they’re trying to tell, which is about Oprah Winfrey being sued by a bunch of Texas cattle ranchers, the cattle ranchers seem broadly in the right! Oprah really was whipping up a panic that had no foundation, especially in the American context where there had never been a case of vCJD, and the kind of spread of BSE that happened in Britain was impossible. Oprah really was being irresponsible and even mendacious--but the law she was being sued under was protectionist bullshit, the standard for libel in the US is (correctly) pretty high, and the lawsuit ultimately failed, which was also probably good.

[somecunttookmyurl]

Please can you explain the BSE thing? I know loads of people who give blood (I can't myself for actual medical reasons) who were in the UK during the BSE outbreak. Surely that would rule out more people over like 30

vCJD (which is what it's called in humans) can lay dormant for decades after exposure so in fact yes it SHOULD rule out all of those people

Unless those people were vegan at the time I guess

But if you were in the UK at any point during the BSE outbreak and consumed any beef or dairy products in that time? There is a small (237 in 1 million if i recall correctly) chance that your brain is just gonna melt at any point

The reason it's taken so seriously is a) it isn't really testable for in blood. not in a screening sort of test in any case and b) vCJD - or any prion disease really - is a fucking nasty way to die. And die you certainly will. The prognosis is "always fatal" and it's also untreatable so all that can be done is making you comfortable for the remaining year or so of your life once symptoms develop

Obv in the UK we can't rule out "everyone who was alive in the 80s and 90s" because that is still the majority of our adult population but like. Everyone else can

Hopefully that clears things up for you! Please do not give blood if you even looked in the general direction of britain whilst thinking about cows in the 80s-90s

[oddballextraordinaire]

"few days and counting" - 2023

"FEWHOURSREMAINING" - 2023

Two pieces of tribute art I have made that are based off of vCJD and Milwaukee Protocol by The Patients. If you like hearing music get destroyed in the most chaotic way imaginable then give those two albums a listen if you dare.

[i-shall-not-show-mercy]

Hello, sorry for the late response, but thank you.

I learned about it this year, and at first it was just not eating any red meat. Then it started to manifest onto chicken, then sweets like sugar cookies (the frosted ones like Lofthouse or storebought).

It's gotten really bad to the point that I can't eat anything with gelatin in it, and the only "safe food" I can probably eat with no worry is macaroni and cheese, and any food that's dairy, since vCJD doesn't spread in dairy products. Often it's about cross-contamination.

It's nice to actually talk to someone who is knowledgeable about the disease. I tried to talk to my parents about it, but they looked at me like I was making stuff up.

I read that vCJD affects younger people, on average at 28 years old. I just turned 23 and I don't want to wake up and just... Slowly decline.

Of course we all have to die someday, but you know what I mean lmao

No worries, darling. I know it's a crazy disease and it's very scary.

I looked it up and mechanically separated meat is illegal in the US as it is in France. Which is good because this was the main cause for contamination. So all meat is safe to eat regarding vMCJ.

It's easy to overthink cross contamination but like I said, it's not an easy feat. CJD is really not very infectious. Frankly. Since the crisis in the 80s, the only cases we have had of vCJD are very very few of the people who handle the prion daily in a secure lab. No real proven cross contamination in food.

You're really young. You were not around to have eaten contaminated meat or have had the tainted human growth hormones. Plus! You're from the US. The vCJD crisis was really mostly in the UK and France.

You take all the time you need but with a bit of background check on origin of products and reassurance that vCJD is very largely eradicated, I reckon you can manage to work some meat back into your diet if you so desire.

I know what you mean. This is not the way to go 😔

[bigweldindustries]

🌻

people who have received a blood transfusion in the UK in the last 45 years can't donate blood in most countries (including, ironically, the UK) because the British blood supply is contaminated with the infective agent that causes mad cow disease (proper name variant Creutzfeldt Jakob disease) which in turn remains in the blood of the recipient. We don't really know what the fuck can happen from this due to the disease class vCJD belongs to having pretty long incubation times lmfao. anyway I've had multiple blood transfusions due to coming out of the womb a bit fucked so I have the British Blood Curse

[carbonateddelusion]

and this wouldn't like

give me uhhhhh

what's the disease. vcjd? the one with the prions

would it?

lmao no you're fine

[wastrelwoods]

imagining a world in which people chose to talk about BSE/vCJD in the same way they talk about kuru and made weird misinformed posts about how only isolated backward primitive cultures and crazy suicidal people eat beef because eating beef gives you a special rare illness that melts your brain into mush. oh is it more nuanced than that? is there some kind of deep internalized bias about the boundaries of correct human behavior that’s leading you to mythologize and fearmonger about one illness and not the other?

[batmanshole]

sometimes i get scared my dad is gonna get vcjd. like its highly unlikely but also he is banned from donating blood bc he was in the uk during the time period where it was common + it can lie dormant for decades