Interesting Stuff

Brain surgery may expose patients to deadly disease

Six patients who received brain surgery between Feb. 13 and March 14 at a suburban Denver hospital were alerted of a possibility that they might have been exposed to a rare contagious fatal degenerative brain disease called Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease...traditional sterilization methods kill bacteria and viruses, but do not kill the CJD agent prion. Because of this, reuse of such tainted devices may subject patients to risk of a fatal disease.
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What is Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease?
Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) is a rare, degenerative, invariably fatal brain disorder. There is no treatment that can cure or control CJD. About 90 percent of patients die within 1 year. It is still extremely rare and only occurs in about one out of every one million people.

CJD is the most common human prion disease. A prion (pronounced 'pree-on') — short for proteinaceous infectious particle — is a unique type of infectious agent, as it is made only of protein.
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Oddly related


Boy with Kuru

Kuru like Creutzfeldt-Jakob is now known to be a prion disease.


Laughing sickness transmitted through Cannibalism
Kuru, also known as laughing sickness due to the outbursts of laughter that mark its second phase, was first noted in New Guinea in the early 1900s. By the 1950s, anthropologists and Australian government officials reported that kuru was rampant with approximately 8,000 cases. The infected group partook in ritual acts of mortuary cannibalism, which behaviour was later determined to be responsible for the epidemic transmission of the disease. the disease all but disappeared with the termination of cannibalism in New Guinea.
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