Thanks Eukaryote—I didn’t know about this prion disease thanks for alerting me! The difference between this and other prion diseases appears to be that it can spread fairly readily through tissues that are not nervous tissues. That’s why it is has managed to slowly spread and expand its geographic range
Both BSE and Kuru (as far as I know) spread only directly through ingestion of nervous system tissue. This makes them super easy to control, as you just (basically) have to make sure no animal or human eats brains and you are fine… That’s why there have been so few human cases of any prion disease to date. I think the terror of these diseases capture the imagination due to its horrible progression and 100% mortality, more than a real large scale epidemic risk.
I’m unconcerned about this disease from a human suffering perspective, because I can’t easily see a mechanism where this could become a quickly spreading, dangerous disease. Spreading to humans is possible isn’t the biggest issue here I don’t think. Even if humans somehow developed the condition—which is possible perhaps most likely only through direct handling of carcassas, despite continuing to eat hunted meat, I don’t see a clear path could spread between humans in a sustained way”.
All we have to do is avoid eating the body fluids of a human with the disease (which we do anyway) and it won’t spread. There’s no indication yet that prion diseases will find away to increase their infectivity.
I don’t think we are living on borrowed time here, I’m not worried about this disease with fairly high confidence.
As a side note from an effective altruism animal suffering perspective this could be an important issue.
Thanks Eukaryote—I didn’t know about this prion disease thanks for alerting me! The difference between this and other prion diseases appears to be that it can spread fairly readily through tissues that are not nervous tissues. That’s why it is has managed to slowly spread and expand its geographic range
Both BSE and Kuru (as far as I know) spread only directly through ingestion of nervous system tissue. This makes them super easy to control, as you just (basically) have to make sure no animal or human eats brains and you are fine… That’s why there have been so few human cases of any prion disease to date. I think the terror of these diseases capture the imagination due to its horrible progression and 100% mortality, more than a real large scale epidemic risk.
I’m unconcerned about this disease from a human suffering perspective, because I can’t easily see a mechanism where this could become a quickly spreading, dangerous disease. Spreading to humans is possible isn’t the biggest issue here I don’t think. Even if humans somehow developed the condition—which is possible perhaps most likely only through direct handling of carcassas, despite continuing to eat hunted meat, I don’t see a clear path could spread between humans in a sustained way”.
All we have to do is avoid eating the body fluids of a human with the disease (which we do anyway) and it won’t spread. There’s no indication yet that prion diseases will find away to increase their infectivity.
I don’t think we are living on borrowed time here, I’m not worried about this disease with fairly high confidence.
As a side note from an effective altruism animal suffering perspective this could be an important issue.