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Airborne Prions Prove Lethal In Mouse Studies
sgunhouse writes "Wired has a story up on the lethality of airborne prions. It should be noted that prions (which cause 'mad cow disease' and similar disorders) are not normally airborne, and take a long time to kill the infected animal, but so far are 100% lethal if something else doesn't kill the animal first. So, they are not likely to be useful as a biological weapon (my first thought when reading their headline), but they present another safety precaution to consider."
pause, and think a moment before you run that cow through the wood chipper.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
Birth is 100% lethal.
Well 99.9999% if you count that Jesus guy, Mary and Elisha.
So, they are not likely to be useful as a biological weapon
A weapon that destroys your enemy's economy in a matter of years is still a viable weapon. Especially if it's hard to detect (ie by the time everyone shows signs of being sick, you are no longer deploying the weapon). This is scary stuff.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
I am not a biologist, but based on my reading of TFA, the scientists successfully infected immunodeficient and immunocompetent mice. It's counterintuitive, but the fact that the disease incubated in the immunodeficient mice at the same rate as the immunocompetent mice is what makes the research significant.
The immune system actually seems to play some kind of a role in prion diseases, acting as a kind of Trojan horse mechanism to spread the infection. It's not totally clear how this works, but the research supports that it happens. So what these scientists did is they inoculated immunodeficient mice with prions and observed them coming down with the prion disease in pretty much the exact same way as the immunocompetent ones. This establishes that a functioning immune system is not actually necessary for infection via aerosol. This means that an immunodeficient mouse, even when kept in semi-isolation, can potentially come down with a prion disease from an aerosol source even when it doesn't come in direct contact with any infected tissues.
That's a pretty big deal when you consider a lot of scientists in research laboratories might be working with immunodeficient mice, in the mistaken assumption that the mice will be safe from prion infection. The recommendation of this paper is that research lab safety guidelines note aerosols as a possible vector for prion infections, which they do not do now. I don't think this is really a warning aimed at keeping people from being infected. For the time being, at least, it's more about keeping research from being spoiled when lab animals come down with infections from unforeseen aerosol sources.
Breakfast served all day!
After 15+ years of this "ice 9" business I'm still waiting for results that in any way meet Koch's Postulates.
OK, this one will cover a lot of ground. Weber P et al. Cell-free formation of misfolded prion protein with authentic prion infectivity. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci USA 2006 October 24; 103(43): 15818–15823. It's open-access, so no excuses about being stuck behind a paywall.
Making claims that biochemists working on prions "don't like to get dirty" is both insulting and disingenuous. Animal models are, in fact, used here to demonstrate that purified PrPsc (misfolded prion protein) is infectious in live hosts, in addition to triggering misfolding in vitro. No one uses farm animals because they're large, expensive, and there's no compelling reason to incur that cost when simpler model animals (here, hamsters) will do.
why not entertain the notion that this is a slow virus and that the symptomatic misfolded protein is a mere phenotype, possibly detrimental, but not causal
Well, because the linked paper was able to amplify the infective population of PrPsc in a cell-free system, which would not be conducive to the amplification of a virus.
I understand the appeal of an underdog hypothesis, but unless you can present a better argument that isn't comprised of ad hominems, vague conspiracy theories, and a smattering of scientific claims answered by 5-year-old literature, I'm not convinced.
After 15+ years of this "ice 9" business I'm still waiting for results that in any way meet Koch's Postulates.
But Laura Manuelidis is claiming that vCJD and others are caused by "a slow-acting virus"... and Koch's Postulates aren't strictly applicable to viruses either. The best that Manuelidis has managed to do is to isolate "virus-like DNA signatures" -- which does not even prove the presence of a virus, let alone that a virus is causative. So in the best case scenario, Manuelidis may have raised some questions, but has been no more successful at meeting your preconditions for accuracy than anybody else. You apparently just think she's "fighting the good fight" because -- much like Jenny McCarthy -- she questions the prevailing theory. That attitude is bad science.
Breakfast served all day!