Slashdot Mirror
New Mad Cow Test on the Horizon?
pin_gween writes "Prions are thought to be responsible for mad cow disease and its human variant, Creutzfeld-Jakob disease. Until now, the only way to positively ID those infected was to dissect the brain. Canada.com has an AP wire reporting that researchers at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston have 'developed a method of multiplying the number prions in a blood sample so a blood test then can detect them.' If perfected, it would make the blood supply safer; transfusions can spread the disease between people. It could also open up more blood donations for the Red Cross: in the U.S., people who have spent more than 3 months total (since 1980) in the UK or 6 months total (since 1980) in Europe are banned from donating."
In Belgium, I am banned from donating blood because i was born in 1978, and lived in the UK till 1980. I left the UK when I was two years old.
Coca-Cola, sometimes War.
I have a friend who worked in a lab that was trying to develop a test for MCD, and my hat goes off to the people who do this kind of work.
Since so little is known about the exact infection process, known infected brain samples have to be handled -very- carefully. Working in a high-level biohazard environment is not easy, and is very stressful.
A house divided against itself cannot stand.
I saw this on the news today at the end of their headlines, they then switched to a commercial without flashing a logo or any pause. The commercial started with a little song "eat steak, eat steak..."
Not sure if that was intentional or not but it was a bit disturbing.