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I became interested in prions nearly a decade ago. As an anthropologist, one of the cultures I taught about in one of my courses was that of the Fore, in Papua, New Guinea. The Fore became well known in anthropological and medical circles because of a strange disease they had, called *kuru*. Kuru almost exterminated the Fore as a people. Usually only women, children, and the elderly contacted kuru, which researchers originally thought was transmitted by some kind of virus. Anthropologist Shirley Lindenbaum discovered that the Fore were endocannibals (people who ate deceased members of their families), and that women, children, and the elderly ate the least favored morsels, including the brain and spinal cord. Again, they were the ones getting kuru. Thus, the discovery that kuru—a spongiform encephalopathy like Scrapie and Mad Cow Disease, was transmitted by ingesting infected CNS tissue. But infected with what? That was the big question until the discovery of prions. Prions, mutated proteins of a very odd sort, it turns out, are very scary little renegade mutants. They cause spongiform encephalopathies (“spongy brain diseases”)—incurable, always fatal diseases. Thus far, they have been found to be practically indestructible. They cross the species barrier, meaning that one animal can contract them by eating another species of animal. Their incubation period varies from months to years. And again, they are transmitted through consumption of infected tissue. (It has appeared that the only way to avoid getting infected is to become a vegetarian.) I would *not* like to learn that prions are an agent responsible for causing PD. (We'll see what medical science concludes on this.) I would, on the other hand, like to learn that science has come up with an effective way to kill prions without killing the infected patient. As far as I know, no one has done so--yet. I’ve read on the Internet that prion diseases are now treatable to some extent, but as best I know, nothing has yet been discovered to halt the progression of these devastating prion diseases. Scott >===== Original Message From Parkinson's Information Exchange Network <[log in to unmask]> ===== >> Does anyone have any further information on prions & PD? > > >articles on: >http://tinyurl.com/on62e > >http://www.neurologyreviews.com/dec99/nr_dec99_Prions.html > >maryse > >---------------------------------------------------------------------- >To sign-off Parkinsn send a message to: mailto:[log in to unmask] >In the body of the message put: signoff parkinsn Scott E. Antes Department of Anthropology Northern Arizona University Flagstaff, AZ 86011-5200 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- To sign-off Parkinsn send a message to: mailto:[log in to unmask] In the body of the message put: signoff parkinsn