comment: >
  
  Can we stop exploiting animals already?
  The mass farming and human contact really is a recipe for disaster.
context: The issue back when this was killing people in the 80s was they were feeding the cows their own byproducts, like brains. That was causing it to spread so I assume this practice has stopped. >
  
  Prions are the cause of mad cow disease, and they are very difficult to destroy. Obviously feeding bovine by-products to cows is a concern, but fertilizing with manure from infected cows that hasn't been properly composted is a huge concern. We see e-coli outbreaks in lettuce from insufficiently composted manure. The spread of mad cow could happen just as easily. >
  
  Are you saying it because you know for sure (from actual studies) or are you just extrapolating from the e-coli stuff.
  Because one thing is a whole bacteria which has an actual cell wall that lets it resist the active chemical and biological agents of the outside environment, a completelly different thing is a random protein from inside an animal that's misfolded.
  I don't thing you can just presume that a protein will last long outside: it might, it might not.
  PS: Not a biologist, might be completelly wrong, would love to hear more about this. >
  
  Prions are extremely resilient... I doubt composting would touch them.
  They even survive basic incineration which was basically unheard of in the pathogen world. 
  Not many things totally freak me out, but prions are one of my actual nightmares. >
  
  That's nuts! I'm a composting nut... but a year for anything that small should tell you all you need to know about how tough they are. 
  Not much lasts a 3 months, let alone a year in a properly managed composting setup.
  It would be fascinating to know what exactly is doing the dirty work at that level (enzyme/bacteria/fungi/worms exc). >
  
  I mean, we can look at prehistorical garbage dumps that are thousands of years old and still identify what people ate and threw away, down to individual species of plants and animals. We can do that because enough organic molecules survive intact over even that time span.
  We've even managed to extract DNA from archaeological and paleontological remains, and DNA is a much more delicate molecule than a prion. >
  
  That's not the same. 
  We mostly identify what prehistoric people/animals ate from stuff like remnants of bones/shells, wear patterns on teeth, minerals in their bones and such.
  Organic evidenced is generally from once in a million chance events when stars align and dozens of different conditions are perfectly right. In almost all cases that does not happen and any evidence is gone withing a couple of years. >
  
  It's not very rare. You can sequence proteins left on teeth, pottery and so on to find out what people ate and what vessels once contained. >
  
  If there is any humidity and oxygen around, even both and teeth break down in a few decades, so just finding bones of a person that wasn't deliberately preserved or is not in some dry cave is unusual.
  Even if you find a skeleton, teeth enamel with any traces on them most likely have decomposed long ago (unlike bone, enamel doesn't last very long).
  For anything that isn't bone/teeth to last any time you really need either sub-zero temperatures (permafrost) or environment without oxygen (mostly likely from sinking in mud). Also luck. >
  
  From the article:
  
  There are essentially two types of BSE, classical and atypical. The classical variant has caused all known cases of Variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in humans where the patient was infected from eating meat. There are no known of a human developing the disease as a result of cattle infected with atypical BSE. Scientists are currently trying to determine which affected the infected cow.
  
  It's not yet known which variant it is. >
  
  Yes.  This is important.
  Atypical means it was an old cow that developed prions on its own.  Classical means it was infected somehow.. >
  
  what is also important is that I don't fully trust any of it. Remember all the calming thoughts around an outbreak in Texas almost a decade ago? In the end it wasn't serious, but the propaganda to keep chill and just eat burguers was real while the fog was clearing out. >
  
  Yeah, you shouldn’t trust any of it.  I don’t trust the beef industry at all.
  At the same time, mad cow was absolutely rampant in the Uk for a decade, when the British government was telling everyone that humans could not get mad cow, and not that many people died from it all things considered.  About 178 it seems.  Your chances of getting mad cow from infected beef are still quite slim, as long as you don't eat an infected brain.  There will be a few American deaths from mad cow since the disease left the UK but the number won’t go higher than 1 to 5.
  There are bigger things in life to worry about. >
  
  It's the main reason why in a lot of countries you are prohibited from donating blood if you lived in the UK during the late 1980's/early 1990's when the initial outbreak occurred.
  Due to prions being able to stay dormant for years/decades, they won't take the chance of having their blood banks from having their stored blood potentially contaminated. >
  
  
  stay dormant for years/decades
  
  Well... prions don't stay dormant for years/decades.
  Prions are misfolded proteins that are nearly indestructible and cause nearby proteins to collapse in the same shape.  They stay... forever.
  But yeah, I know what you mean, there can be decades between the introduction of prions and the start of the disease. >
  
  Fuck as a Brit the 90s are back. The burning bodies in fields. >
  
  Yeah...lamb lasagna again. >
  
  Sheep and goats have their own prion disease, and a field that was once home to infected flocks can harbor scrapie prions that infect later flocks that graze on it. >
  
  Tell that to the 90s. >
  
  Well that's fucking horrifying >
  
  Bird flu's decimating poultry farms at the same time.
  I think Mother Nature's trying to tell us something. >
  
  Mad cow is completely preventable. The reason it develops is because they add ground up cow brains and spinal cords to the feed.  You see this in humans that practice cannibalism as well. >
  
  Actually probably not! They updated the article to say this was atypical BSE, which means the cow may have developed the disease spontaneously. There’s no known case of atypical BSE causing disease in humans and researches are still unsure how it develops but believe it to often be spontaneous or basically caused by a random misfolding of a protein. >
  
  
  researches are still unsure how it develops but believe it to often be spontaneous or basically caused by a random misfolding of a protein. 
  
  Anxiety over death by prions is back on the menu, boys!
  Seriously, I'm pretty suicide-adverse in my own mortality, but prions are one of the few things that would get me to start looking up assisted suicide. That shit is horrific. >
  
  In some sense this is even more terrifying since if it's a random misfolding, then there's no prions involved. >
  
  There is a prion involved, just that the prion developed spontaneously rather than being introduced externally. That random misfolding is how prions are created. >
  
  But why must there be a prion involved? A protein van can just randomly misfold. I don't think every misfolfed protein is a prion, just the ones that are "transmissible". The fact that this type of misfolding is not transmissible means there's no prions. >
  
  A mis folded protein that causes this type of disease is called a prion. >
  
  My dad's uncle died from that disease.
  I hope it's taken care of quickly before people get hurt. >
  
  Yeah, horrible way to die but at least it's relatively fast once the decline hits. 6 weeks maybe. Like accelerated Alzheimer's or something until the brain stops working >
  
  Not true. My friends dad had it.  Everyone assumed it was alzheimers until the autopsy.  He was declining for at least a couple years and had odd behaviors.  This was early to mid 90s >
  
  My Mum had it, not the form from beef but the form from unknown. 
  Yeah, there were "odd behaviours" but nothing that could compare to the true decline that lasted for like 6-7 weeks. Odd behaviour didn't majorly affect the day to day. Going insane does. When the true decline started it went from mistaking me for my uncle to thinking there was gas everywhere all the time in 2 weeks. >
  
  Sorry that happened to your family. 
  Friends dad would walk the sidewalk in the neighborhood and pick up anything “shiny” in peoples yards.  He needed help caring for himself for at least 12 months.  I didnt ask much about the autopsy, but friend said his dads brain basically turned into a sponge. >
  
  Ah, we/she only had to deal with 6 weeks of that. A year would have been genuinely horrific. My mum kept trying to push the dog out of the window to save him from the impending gas disaster and we'd have to pick her up from the road. Didn't realize every case wasn't so fast. Feel for your friend >
  
  For reference, according to the CDC it has the following average duration of illness:
  Classic CJD - 4-5 months
  Variant CJD - 13-14 months
  Source
  Sorry for both yours and /u/Absinthe_Parties losses. No matter what, it's an unpleasant way to go for the patient and the families. >
  
  Thats scary. Prion disease is terrifying and there is nothing we can do at this pointin science. >
  
  
  there is nothing we can do
  
  Scientist here. Have you considered the option of just not eating animals' corpses?
  lol. Of course this gets downvoted. Stay classy, reddit. >
  
  wow, since when is facebook scientist a scientist? >
  
  Which scientist are you? Just give us al your personal data and answer 49 unrelated questions to find out! >
  
  Why did people downvote this this is obviously a joke about facebook >
  
  It´s all good, it can be hard to grasp tone over text. I also didn´t add a /s. Which doesn´t help my case. >
  
  For the people coming in late to the thread:
  This seems to be the atypical variety which rarely appear on old cows. Luckily it wasn't caused by infected food. There doesn't seem to be a risk that the disease spread via the food chain. >
  
  There is no risk for the food chain, this case was discovered at Rendac during routine testing, the company that is responsible for the destruction of animals that die on the farm, eg when they are sick, and pets. This is completely separate from the foodchain. The fact everybody is getting worked is they literal proof the system works and our food is as safe as it can be. >
  
  Just what these past 3 absolutely shit years needed. >
  
  I’m tired >
  
  That's was a great first month this year, can't wait for what's next. >
  
  All the signs of a sci-fi blockbuster were there in the first month of the 2020s. >
  
  I forgot Iran shot at an ukrainian plane, with what we know today who would believe this was unintentionnal? >
  
  The missile was fired with intent, the target however was not what they thought it was. >
  
  I lived in Britain in the 80s and ate beef. No blood drive will touch me. >
  
  It has now been confirmed that it is the atypical variant, which is good news. >
  
  Oh look, 18 months ago the EU lifted the ban using dead animals as feed (which is what caused the mad cow disease outbreak last time), and voila, another outbreak. 
  Whoever could have guessed that might happen. >
  
  
  another outbreak.
  
  1 case is not an outbreak. >
  
  There can never be just 1 case. >
  
  
  me drinking beer >
  
  I watched a documentary on bbc several years ago and it explained that dependant on certain peoples genes, CJD may lie dormant in most of the population before presenting. 
  Those who died in Britain in the 90s presented with symptoms within months or years. 
  This documentary said that thousands of others, or possibly more could start showing symptoms in the coming decades. 
  Terrifying when I think basically everybody I know and love ate British beef in the 90s. >
  
  I was living in Europe during the last outbreak. I hope it doesn't escalate. >
  
  I cant give blood for the same reason. >
  
  Ditto. It's a scary disease that can come bite you after so long. >
  
  2020s events starter pack:
  [] Reminiscent of the 1930s
  [] Reminiscent of a Transformers movie
  ✅ Disease of the month
  [] Hail Satan >
  
  Writers room is throwing everything at the wall. Upper management doesnt seem to know what they want. A feel good hero story? A doomsday movie? A scifi thriller? >
  
  We absolutely got plopped in a Michael Bay Transformers writer’s room circa 2013. No Fun. >
  
  I remember my grandma (born around 1920) saying the following when mad cow disease was a big topic in the 90s: „When I was a child and we had mad cow like that, we just ate it.“ >
  
  And beef prices just jumped 50% >
  
  So we didn’t learn anything from the previous outbreak? ”Yeah let’s make the cows cannibals again, what could go wrong?” >
  
  it's not yet known if it came from food like you imply or whether it's just a spontaneous mutation that just happens sadly. >
  
  It's the latter. >
  
  is it sure now? it did sound like it though, when only one cow has it. quite funny though how soo many instantly search for an offender and blaming humans when it's simply nature doing nature things >
  
  There was a big concern in the nineties that thousands of people would eventually show up with this disease. So it was only 88. >
  
  Oh god. Not this again. >
  
  I’ve been trying to reduce my meat consumption for environmental reasons, guess this is just another reason to reduce. >
  
  lets hope this did not come from food because then we have a problem. If it's just a spontaneous mutation, well, that can happen to all of us ¯⁠\⁠⁠(⁠ツ⁠)⁠⁠/⁠¯ >
  
  I knew sending my mother in law on a trip to Amsterdam was a bad idea. >
  
  I guess it's back to farming Cow Level in Diablo 2 >
  
  Quit feeding cows other cows brains >
  
  So no eggs and now no beef. We're all going vegan! >
  
  Did somebody start a Plague Inc playthrough and pick Netherlands this time >
  
  They failed the coronavirus playthrough and is now starting the Mad cow disease scenario. >
  
  Can't wait for ground beef to be $40/lb >
  
  You could just not eat meat. Meat eaters think they need to consume an entire animal with every meal.
  I'm not even a vegetarian, I'm just annoyed at cooking meat, and it's pretty damn easy to avoid or limit your intake.
  Edit: guy replied and blocked me from responding lmao. Not sure why people get butthurt over suggesting they decrease their meat intake. Continue complaining about the price, I guess. >
  
  Dude, this was a very intense response. You have no idea how much meat this person eats. >
  
  absolutely terrifying >
  
  All you have to do is NOT FEED COWS TO COWS!!! How fucking hard is that? >
  
  Two cows standing in a field in Holland.  One says to the other ' I'm a bit worried about the mad cow disease '. The other cows looks up and says 'well I'm not, I'm a duck.......🐄