
When People Ate People, a Strange Disease Emerged - lentil_soup
http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2016/09/06/482952588/when-people-ate-people-a-strange-disease-emerged
======
touchofevil
I did a bunch of research (googling) back in the late 90's or 2000s when the
mad cow disease outbreak first happened mainly in England. I thought it was
pretty terrifying and I wanted to know what the hell was going on. I read
about Kuru all the way back then and the take away was that people shouldn't
eat the brain and nervous tissue of other people or Kuru could result. But
also it seemed that mad cow disease was occurring because cows were being fed
the ground up remains of other cows and that included cow brain and cow
nervous tissue. So basically what was happening with cows was the same as what
was happening with people getting Kuru.

I also recall learning that in order to get mad cow disease you would need to
eat cow brain or cow nervous tissue. Of course, you would probably assume, as
I did, that you are safe because you don't eat cow brains or nervous tissue.
Well, you could be wrong about that. There is something called AMR (advanced
meat recovery). As I understand it, when the meat processing plant removes the
spine and skull from the cow there is still some meat stuck to the spine and
skull. The AMR process entails blasting off that meat stuck to the spine and
skull with some kind of high pressure for use in ground meat. But the result
is that some nervous tissue from the cow can get mixed up in ground meat
created with the AMR technique and that is one way that you could end up
eating cow nervous tissue. After I did that research, I swore off ground meat.

~~~
justboxing
> The AMR process entails blasting off that meat stuck to the spine and skull
> with some kind of high pressure for use in ground meat.

This is true. A while back, I read stories of how (Mostly low-wage Mexican)
Workers at Meat Plants were getting a strange neurological disease that
confounded their doctors. The cause was then traced to them inhaling the
aerosol of the Animals' brains being blown out, mostly Pigs.

Related News / Source:

\- The Spam Factory's Dirty Secret =>
[http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2011/06/hormel-spam-
pig-...](http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2011/06/hormel-spam-pig-brains-
disease)

\- Vaporized Pig Brains Are Torturing Austin's Migrant Meatpackers =>
[http://www.citypages.com/news/book-vaporized-pig-brains-
are-...](http://www.citypages.com/news/book-vaporized-pig-brains-are-
torturing-austins-migrant-meatpackers-6544422)

~~~
Clownshoesms
Here I am teetering on the edge of vegetarianism, and people are talking about
blowing meat chunks off spines to extract that last bit of cash, and workers
inhaling aerosolized pig brains.

Might be the push I needed!

~~~
ergothus
I've been vegetarian for a bit over a decade (no fish, but dairy and eggs
okay) - If you live in the right area, and have the right tastes, it's
downright easy. In other areas, it's quite difficult.

My personal tips & notes:

* If you otherwise enjoy meat, there are a lot of meat-substitutes out there and more being developed. These tend to do a great job of mimicking processed meats and a terrible job of mimicking "real" meat. They also vary greatly. Quorn, Morningstar, and Boca (for example) all have very different tastes and textures, so if you don't like one try a different one. (I personally prefer Quorn for chicken-substitutes and Morningstar for beef-substitutes). OTOH, some vegetarians never had a big attachment to meat, and this is not an issue. (I am very jealous of these people).

* Eating out is by far the hardest. In areas with many vegetarians (say, Seattle), you tend to have multiple options, things tend to be clearly labeled, and waitstaff is used to getting questions. In other areas (say, Georgia), you have fewer options, no labels, and people act like you've accused them of something evil if you have questions. Either way, though, the majority of the menu becomes inaccessible to you.

* If you are trying to be mostly strict, be cautious when dealing with regional/cultural boundaries. While Indian food tends to follow the same vegetarian definition as I do (Jainian food is even more strict than I am), others don't (Chinese and Japanese tend to not consider fish or other seafood as animals, thus you'll find oyster sauce on the "vegetarian" menu, or dishes that have oyster sauce or some sort of animal-based broth that isn't called out as such (oyster sauce, fish sauce, pork, beef, or chicken broth, and/or shrimp paste in some curries). In the American South, pork isn't just a meat, it's also a seasoning. Most purely vegetable dishes (such as "green beans" or "corn") aren't vegetarian there :(

* How strict you want to be impacts how easy life is. Avoiding tangible animal-based meat = easy. Avoiding broths and lard = not as easy. Avoiding animal byproducts, such as most gelatin, use of bones in filtering, animal-based rennet in cheese , insect-based dyes and glaze = quite a bit more effort. Find a level you are comfortable with, because for most reasons, it is still far better to be a not-entirely strict vegetarian than a failed attempt at a strict vegetarian. I myself avoid gelatin and known insect products (no more Junior Mints :( ), and when cooking at home I get animal-friendly cheese and sugar, but when I'm out I don't worry about where they got their cheese, but will ask about broths and seafood-sauces.

* If you are a picky eater such as myself, be warned that many places decide to make vegetarian dishes more "exciting" by putting in every form of vegetable/grain they can think of. Like a supreme pizza, some people are glad for the variety, but most have something in there they don't like. (I myself can't stand green bell peppers, which is in, like, 90% of commonly available vegetarian fare :( )

* I first went vegetarian cold-turkey (ha!) in college...but after 6 months I stopped because I was seeing stars constantly. (It's actually pretty easy to get all your nutrients as a vegetarian, unless you're living on a diet of rice and mac&cheese like I was) I had, however, lost the taste for red meat (suddenly felt oily and flavorless), and noticed that certain salads I had disliked I now enjoyed. A few years later I tried again, but this time I did it slow. I dropped a category of meat each year, giving myself time to adjust my diet and make sure I had a variety of options. I believe I dropped beef (from the first stint), then pork, then poultry, then all forms of seafood. The next year I dropped leather products as an ethical choice, and I've been this way for over a decade without too much effort. Some extra food costs, a limited range of foods, and limited eating out options, but not so much that it's hard. Dieting, for example, is much harder.

* You will learn to hate the preachy, judgmental vegetarian-types that make life hard for us. Most vegetarians (in my experience) do what they do for reasons they consider good, and think it'd be great if others did the same, but feel no need to look down on others that don't, nor to inform them of their "evil ways". I mean, most of us ate meat for a long time and didn't switch the first time the thought occurred to us, so why judge others for being the same? Still though, people get very defensive and often assume you're one of the preachy types until you prove otherwise.

* ...You will also learn to hate how defensive people are in general. This is not restricted to vegetarianism. If you say you're on a diet, people will talk about how awesome their chocolate cake is. Mention you have diabetes, and they'll list the sugary foods they adore. Say you're vegetarian, and they'll talk about how animals just taste so good, or how happy they are to shoot Bambi. I've collected a few vegetarian jokes to help break the ice and show I'm not a jerk about it. (My favorite: 'Vegetarian' is actually based on an old (insert culture here - I tend to say 'Native American') word, meaning "lousy hunter")

* Oddly enough, holidays tend to be the EASIEST times. Everyone talks about the turkey, but a traditional big feast (at least in America) actually involves lots of non-meat dishes. I found this a good way to relax my family and friends - I provide a big meal that doesn't contain "weird stuff". Some of the more skeptical people still bring meat dishes, but even then they end up seeing that as a part of the whole, as opposed to be a contrast between "weird food" and "normal food".

If you decide to take the leap, I hope this helps!

~~~
ethbro
As a, for lack of a better term, total vegetarian, do you have any moral
thoughts on different types of animals? Was the herbavore vs omnivore vs
carnivore thing a consideration? Did you debate mammal protein vs fish?

Curious how people arrive at "their" vegetarianism.

~~~
bitexploder
Flirted with stints of vegetarianism. Still eat far less meat than "average"
and can go many days without meat.

I am okay eating animals, they are tasty. They think, they die, they go to my
tummy. I try to eat grass fed and "humane" local stuff these days precisely to
avoid issues that occur at mass produced meat factories (antibiotic needs,
etc.). This makes meat cost more, which makes me eat less.

The central reason for me comes down to sustainability. Eggs and milk are
still not the most humane things to me, but they are sustainable and quite a
bit better than killing the animals they come from. They cost way less to
produce and eggs/cheese/dairy make a lot of tasty stuff I am less willing to
give up than meat.

We can probably sustain the planet if everyone eats a light to moderate amount
of dairy/eggs, but based on what I have read we really can't do that with the
amount of meat consumption in America (and other places that are meat heavy in
their culture.)

Not only that but Americans are used to cheap meats and are very very slowly
becoming used to paying for meat at prices where it can be raised more
healthily (legitimate free range, zero antibiotics due to much lower animal
density, etc.)

tl;dr save the planet, and maybe because I occasionally feel bad animals die
for me to live a more convenient life.

edit: also, regarding the fish only "vegans"...honestly... it is hard enough
to safely define one thinking meat from another. I think people do a lot of
mental twists and turns and narrative building to convince themselves that
something like say, fish, are "lesser" thinking meats. Insects? Fungi?
Bacteria? How do you define your thinking meat? The philosophy of this is
actually fiendishly difficult if you take it seriously and don't just stop
when your brain has convinced you that you have it figured out. I also don't
think it is even subjective, even though it is a very passionate subject. At
some level if you eat animals you have to accept the consequence and can't
just rationalize away you are eating the muscles and fats of an animal that
had its own thing going on. I just never felt strongly convinced by the whole
strict vegan argument given the amount of energy required to live that way (it
is actually hard and difficult to be a really strict Vegan, in my opinion that
time can be better spent reducing misery of actual humans in a lot of cases)

~~~
ergothus
> I also don't think it is even subjective, even though it is a very
> passionate subject.

I'll agree to that. If you have a definition of "thinking/self-
aware/conscious/sapient/concept of choice", any given creature either IS or
ISN'T. But we can't agree on a definition, and we have no real means to test.
So it's a non-subjective fact that we (currently) have only subjective means
to determine, and subjective arguments over what we're even talking about.

On the topic of sustainability, I recently learned just how much of the global
corn crop goes to feed animals: so much that when people talk about the
industry of growing corn, they just talk about animal feed. Corn for human
consumption is such a tiny slice of the market it only comes up if you zoom in
on certain parts.

~~~
ethbro
I think the scale slides the other way too. So just because plants looks
different than us, it seems kind of arbitrary to relegate them as "not
thinking" and subject to whatever we want to do with them. I mean, I'm sure
grass isn't thrilled about having its new growth trimmed repeatedly.

Not making an argument one way or the other, just have been thinking about it
for myself. So I suppose my only point to the above would be that "there's
always a subjective line that needs to be drawn somewhere, rather than an
objective one."

~~~
bitexploder
Agreed. Main thing is, I like being alive and have to eat, at least, plants to
stay alive. So it does bring you to an interesting point of, so... if I can't
safely say that even plants aren't really thinking food... I should just not
try to formulate an argument about which things are "thinking", but not
everything is relative. Using the facts we have now I will only go so far on
the whole whole relativism angle. Cows are way more like me than a black bean,
for example. So it is pretty easy to at least roughly group things. Anyway, we
agree here, but ultimately we shaped the world in a certain way (our
ancestors) so we just have to accept that we can't change certain things
easily or at all (what we eat, that we have to cut grass, etc). So that line
of thinking about "should I eat thing X?" just seems trickier because I have
so many biases rattling around in my brain and we always construct our
internal narrative to fit facts.

What isn't hard is the sustainability argument. That is super simple
arithmetic. And that is the one that pretty much seals it for me.

I think a lot of people start from the sustainability angle and then convince
themselves of a lot of things that are murky or they themselves didn't really
personally decide this, it is just something a lot of other people are doing /
have decided and it fits their narrative of "meat is not sustainable". That
said I do think there are well reasoned actors out there that have "done the
work" to decide eating meat is not for them, but don't dress it up as a
philosophical choice until you /have/ done the work and thought it through. It
starts and ends with a lot of Why? :)

------
metasean
I first heard about prions and Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease after getting a
letter saying I may have been exposed.

I had surgery after someone with CJD, but before that person died, was
autopsied, and diagnosed.

That was over a decade ago. So far no signs of it. I did make peace with the
fact that I have a much higher probability of dying from it than the average
American. The only substantivu changes in my life are:

(a) My family and I have had very frank discussion about death earlier than we
would have otherwise.

(b) I no longer donate blood.

(c) I removed myself as an organ donor. Although my family knows I still want
my body to be available for science.

~~~
developer2
>> My family and I have had very frank discussion about death earlier than we
would have otherwise.

It would benefit any family to have that discussion, even if both parents are
in their 20s and there has been no "scare scenario". Many people die every
single day due to unpredictable events, with no warning whatsoever.
Unfortunately, too many people have never _really_ pondered their mortality,
leading them to be incapable of even considering what it would mean if
man/woman/child died tomorrow. Having a sit-down meeting is likely to be
brushed off as a "meh, it'll never actually happen to us".

Any one of us could be dead in the next 5 minutes. That's more reality than
paranoia. The trick is to get to the point where you understand just how
fleeting life is (you or a loved one might be gone any day now), but without
letting it negatively control your life.

>> I did make peace with the fact that I have a much higher probability of
dying from it than the average American

You should stop thinking that way. A decade past the initial scare, you're
likely no more at risk than anyone else. You weren't _given_ the disease, you
were exposed to a small _possibility_ of it. It's still the responsible thing
to not donate blood or be an organ donor, but as far as your day-to-day life
goes you should consider yourself squarely in the "average" category.

~~~
ekr
Surely, after a decade it should be fairly easy to detect Prp_sc levels, or at
least extract bone marrow sample for examination. That should eliminate beyond
any reasonable level of doubt, any reason for worrying about the matter.

~~~
cat199
Certain categories of people with exposure are to this day disallowed from
being blood donors as a result due to the risk and difficulty in testing.

Red Cross rules: " You are not eligible to donate if:

From January 1, 1980, through December 31, 1996, you spent (visited or lived)
a cumulative time of 3 months or more, in the United Kingdom (UK), or From
January 1, 1980, to present, you had a blood transfusion in any country(ies)
in the (UK) or France. The UK includes any of the countries listed below. ...
"

[http://www.redcrossblood.org/donating-blood/eligibility-
requ...](http://www.redcrossblood.org/donating-blood/eligibility-
requirements/eligibility-criteria-alphabetical-listing#arc5)

------
YCode
I understand prion diseases are rare and it's more likely I'll die in a car
accident or something, but the persistence of prions is just a horrifying
concept.

Highly resistant to heat, radiation, proteases, enzymes... Basically if you've
got a prion disease it's just a matter of time before they end you.

~~~
quantumhobbit
What would a cure for prion diseases even look like? Are prions targeted by
the immune system at all? That to me is what is scary about them.

~~~
itchyouch
From what I recall, they are seen as normal proteins by the immune system,
thus not targeted.

A simple illustration on prions was to imagine it like a busted cable end that
would break the socket it plugs into, then the socket would break other cable
ends plugged into it. This would occur until all sockets and cable ends were
broken in the same way.

~~~
phkahler
Decades ago, we had a PCMCIA card that did exactly that. A bent pin distorted
the plastic in the socket and that led to more bent pins. Of course you had to
try to force them in to propagate the problem and we never tested to see how
many generations it could last. Once discovered we threw out all defective
hardware which was just a few cards by then.

~~~
jacobush
I have heard this one before!

------
Blueskytech
Many of you have probably heard about Prions and Papua New Guinea but the end
of the article discusses new prion diseases showing up in deer within North
America.

The idea that human's could get a prion disease from deer meat, coupled with a
potentially long incubation period, is frightening. Living in a hunting
community I may avoid eating deer for the foreseeable future.

~~~
dnautics
it's highly unlikely... There's a (probably directed, weighted) graph of
species-species transmission potential, and it does seem to obey some rough
distance rule, which does NOT correlate necessarily with species distance
rule. We think that cows can transmit to humans; cows and sheep can co-
transmit. (if you have a sheep with scrapie sharing a pasture with cow, the
cow can get mad cow disease). deer though do not seem to transmit to cow, even
though CWD is super common in deer and deer and cow pasture together pretty
much everywhere in the US except maybe hawaii.

Here, a transgenic mouse with human prion protein is resistant to CWD
transmission; but the same mouse with elk protein is susceptible.

[http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/19336896.2015.11...](http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/19336896.2015.1118603?src=recsys&)

~~~
Blueskytech
That's really great information thanks for sharing

~~~
dnautics
Here is a really good review:

[https://academic.oup.com/bmb/article/66/1/199/284812/Other-a...](https://academic.oup.com/bmb/article/66/1/199/284812/Other-
animal-prion-diseases)

------
wiradikusuma
Reminds me of a scene in the film Book of Eli, which, if you're a fan of
Fallout, should watch.

~~~
brandonmenc
An underrated movie, imo.

------
laurentoget
Prions were the cause of the BSE cattle disease. more commonly known as mad
cow disease in europe some years ago, which was blamed on cattle being fed
animal products. It killed a couple hundred human and millions of animals
either died or were slaughtered.

The incubation period is several years so at the height of the crisis the
worst case scenario involved hundreds of thousand of people developing the
disease.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bovine_spongiform_encephalopat...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bovine_spongiform_encephalopathy)

~~~
maxerickson
Lots of US people end up hearing about this in a roundabout way, having lived
in the UK for a period of time is a disqualifier for donating blood in the US.
So each time you donate blood you read a question asking about cumulative time
spent:

[https://www.fda.gov/BiologicsBloodVaccines/BloodBloodProduct...](https://www.fda.gov/BiologicsBloodVaccines/BloodBloodProducts/QuestionsaboutBlood/DonatingBlood/#nvCJD)

------
mtw
Can we view this as nature's mechanism to prevent cannibalism amongst species?
Mad cow disease occurred when cattle were fed the remains of other cattle in
the form of meat and bone meal

~~~
MrBuddyCasino
Why would nature care?

~~~
cookiecaper
Cannibalism seriously threatens a species' survival. Risk of disease from
eating same-species meat is a good way to stop it.

~~~
XFrequentist
Nature cares not a whit about "species".

~~~
yblu
All things equal.

Specie A (with this disease) stop cannibalizing after seeing the outcome,
better chance of survival.

Specie B (without this disease) eat themselves to the last person... Lower
chance of survival as a specie.

Nature "cares" by generating lots of options, then let the fittest to survive.
So while nature doesn't intend or plan for a specie to survive, the outcome is
no different from if it did. I believe the OP means "care" in this sense.

~~~
mcguire
" _Specie B (without this disease) eat themselves to the last person... Lower
chance of survival as a specie._ "

That seems unlikely. A bigger risk would be a carnivorous species
exterminating its prey species.

------
jmnicholson
Interesting side story is that Gadjusek did a year in prison for child
molestation (which he think is a natural/good thing).

There is a documentary on him on BBC called the Genius and the boys
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4OxppDxzSww](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4OxppDxzSww)

------
nstj
Researcher: "I have no solid idea where this problem could be coming from. As
a last resort I'll examine whether the ritualistic consumption of decomposing
human brains may have _something_ to do with it"

> Lindenbaum had a hunch about what was going on, and she turned out to be
> right. It had to do with funerals. [0]: Ibid.

------
fourstar
Can you be tested for prion disease?

~~~
ethomson
Indeed, you can. What you cannot do, however, is remain alive to get the
results.

~~~
gonvaled
Unless they are negative?

~~~
cortesoft
No, he is making a joke that you can only test by looking at slices of brain
tissue (which require you to be dead to do)

~~~
nkrisc
You don't have to be dead when they start, but you will be when they finish.

------
finid
For the past months I've been seriously considering starting a theme
restaurant that served wild meats - deer, hogs, gators, large constrictors,
etc. That idea just went out the window.

~~~
JauntTrooper
Prion-disease transmission from wild game is still quite rare.

I'd be more worried about exotic parasites or radioactivity from the wild
hogs.

[0]
[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/germany/110...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/germany/11068298/Radioactive-
wild-boar-roaming-the-forests-of-Germany.html)

------
throwaway001001
>My own interest in this question became rekindled by my experiences in New
Guinea over the last 50 years. When I arrived in New Guinea for the first
time, it became clear to me almost immediately that New Guineans are curious,
questioning, talkative people with complex languages and social relationships,
_on the average at least as intelligent as Europeans and Americans._

[http://www.jareddiamond.org/Jared_Diamond/Guns,_Germs,_and_S...](http://www.jareddiamond.org/Jared_Diamond/Guns,_Germs,_and_Steel.html)

------
goatlover
Is it certain this came from cannibalism and not infected pigs?

~~~
tray5
Yes, very certainly. When the cannibalism stopped, so did instances of Kuru.
Although you can get Prion diseases from eating infected pig brain and nervous
tissue, the instances discussed in the article were solely caused by ritual
cannibalism.

------
popopobobobo
This article make me unwell. Just thinking of the cannibalism makes me wanna
throw up.

~~~
riffic
Let me accelerate that then:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Beginning_Was_the_End](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Beginning_Was_the_End)

~~~
Bjorkbat
This might just have been the best thing I've ever seen on Wikipedia.

We evolved from a species of ape that developed an appetite for going on
cannibalistic brain-eating killing sprees followed shortly after by a lot of
rape because eating brains fills us with uncontrollable lust. In the long-term
this made us super intelligent, but killed our psychic abilities and thus our
ability to connect with nature, so we began to do a lot of really awful things
like pollute the environment, develop nuclear weapons, and become racially-
tolerant (gasp!). If you want to escape from the hell that awaits modern
society, then you should drop out, become vegetarian, get acquainted with
Eastern philosophy, and maybe try and reshape your head using some wooden
frames. Also, modern cannibalistic tribes are really just trying to play
catch-up with white people.

But the best part of all has to be the Devo connection.

------
samirillian
And that's why you never grok.

------
Winblows69
NPR needs to be more concise. Their informative articles such as this one are
written as if the writer is trying to get an A in creative writing 101. Knock
off the color and give us the scoop in 2-3 paragraphs.

------
mkagenius
Okay, atleast some benefit of being a vegetarian. But iirc there was some
vegies too that can infect the brain.

