Eight NH patients possibly exposed to fatal brain disease at Manchester hospital

[graywarrior]

http://www.boston.com/lifestyle/health/blogs/white-coat-notes/2013/09/04/eight-patients-possibly-exposed-fatal-brain-disease-manchester-hospital/KEGiaVXQHhwPvWkysSXVPN/blog.html


Sheesh.

[kestrel91316]

1. Surgical instruments cannot be made safe after contact with prions in CJD patients.

They have to be thrown away. Thousands of dollars worth. Prions are proteins and are not "alive", so they cannot be "killed" by any means of sterilization available.

What a mess.

Oh, and Alzheimers will probably turn out to be another prion disease, IMHO.

[graywarrior]

2. Scary as hell

I wonder if dental tools are affected

[kestrel91316]

4. In this case, who knows? But if Alzheimer's is a prion disease just think about

the implications of your question.

[graywarrior]

7. Yeah

We're probably safer letting our teeth rot!

[livetohike]

3. I agree with you on Alzheimer's and prions

My m-i-l had five sisters. The youngest had CJD and everyone else has Alzheimer's (including my m-i-l).

[kestrel91316]

5. BASE is the bovine prion disease that is virtually identical to Alzheimer's in people,

and now they have documented its transmission to primates.

http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0003017

[livetohike]

6. Thanks for this link. Wow...scary.

Will show this to my husband. He has a ton of cousins on this side of the family. Some already have been diagnosed with Alzheimer's....relatively young too.