
Prion Disease Can Lurk in Your Brain for 30 Years Before Quickly Killing You - rbanffy
https://gizmodo.com/prion-disease-can-lurk-in-your-brain-for-30-years-befor-1823628617
======
PhantomGremlin
The article doesn't mention the outbreak in Europe (mostly in the UK), which
peaked in the early 1990s. Fortunately (based on the graph in Wikipedia) the
tail end of that looks pretty low.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bovine_spongiform_encephalopat...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bovine_spongiform_encephalopathy#Europe)

The European outbreak was probably caused by feeding contaminated protein
supplements to cattle. It affected quite a few more people than the
contaminated dura mater grafts in Japan.

~~~
fred256
... and as a result anyone who lived in Europe during the 1990s is
disqualified from donating blood in the US.

~~~
PhantomGremlin
Yeah, that's how I know about it. I spent some time in England in the early
1980s. So it affects me. But I did get my gallon pin before they kicked me
out. Which means that there could be hundreds of Americans walking around with
foreign prions, just because of me. :)

The real advantage of being kicked out is that once you tell them the reason
you can't give anymore, they ghost you. Totally. No more phone calls literally
begging for your blood. :)

The funny thing is, I'm sure, all the English are donating blood to one
another. And they're surviving.

I can see the opposite viewpoint as well. If even a single American got BSE
from "foreign" blood, there would be an incredible shitstorm. And the poor
recipient would have received the equivalent of a death sentence.

