Fuck prions and the horse they rode in on. They’re not even alive, so you can’t kill them. No vaccine, no cure, and thoroughly cooking your food is still no guaranteed way to get rid of them.
Nature’s silent assassins, and they take their sweet time doing it too. By the time you first notice it’s already far too late.
By the time you first notice it’s already far too late.
Not really, so long as you have already reproduced. From the perspective of your genes, “you” are expendable anyway:-(.
And if we want to do anything about that, perhaps we should properly fund scientific research.
Wdym too late? Is there something you could have done if you knew “soon enough”?
I say this without any attempt at humor, “kill yourself peacefully before you’re unable to and the people around you refuse to”
If I knew I had a prion disease, I’d be making plans to die peacefully unaware, or suddenly, the moment a symptom shows up.
My only real firsthand experience with prion diseases is Fatal Familial Insomnia, and the person was strapped into hospital bed restraints after a suicide attempt, and the only thing they would do when they chose to speak was beg for us to let them die because they can’t keep going like this anymore.
Edit: honestly I do not know if there is any way to treat other prions, but to my knowledge there isn’t. It’s just “ease their suffering as they slowly die in front of you”
Prion vaccines would work for sure. Their rarity makes it not all that worthwhile as a public health measure
How do you vaccinate against a protein?
Prion diseases are fatal infectious neurodegenerative disorders and prototypic conformational diseases, caused by the conformational conversion of the normal cellular prion protein (PrPC) into the pathological PrPSc isoform.
The immune system does not develop a bona fide immune response against prion infection, as PrPC and PrPSc share an identical protein primary structure, and prions seem not to represent a trigger for immune responses. This asks for alternative vaccine strategies, which focus on PrPC-directed self-antibodies or exposure of disease-specific structures and epitopes. Several groups have established a proof-of-concept that such vaccine candidates can induce some levels of protective immunity in cervid and rodent models without inducing unwanted side effects. This review will highlight the most recent developments and discuss progress and challenges remaining.
Have a read through the full article and sources below and you can take a look at some novel approaches being evaluated at the moment:
I’m so excited to finally be able to safely consume the brains of my enemies!
