On Fri, 8 Nov 2002 12:26:14 -0600, "Gordon Couger"
wrote:
"Torsten Brinch" wrote in message
.. .
Again, compare with the time delayed effect of methyl mercury.
We would not say that a person who has just ingested a dose
of methyl mercury which will in time make him go down with
neurological disease, has had a disease transmitted to him, nor
would we say that the time passing until his symptoms appear
is an incubation time. We would say that he has been exposed
to a toxic dose of methylmercury, sufficient to cause chronic
effects.
--------------------------------
It would be facinting to find out how and why man contacts vCJD with so few
pateints I expect a guess will be best they can do with spieces that catch
TSE diseases not developed in their species.

With the number of species involved in the sudden UK upsurge of TSE in
the last few decades of the 20th century and in all sorts of species
the simplest hypothesis is that they all got it from the same source
directly and/or via consumption of meat or dairy products.

Probably our best bet scrapie or CWD. If I were to guess and it is a guess
only if come from sniffing another animal wiht and getting the protien on
the nerve endings of the nerves that do the smelling. The ony reason for the
guess is it is the shortest path to the brain. It may well be licking and a
oral route.

Yes. Come to think of it, kissing as a risk actor for these relatively
young people dying of vCJD is territory relatively uncharted by
science, afaik.
..

The US EPA, in the context of GM approvals, is a notable exception.
In that context the EPA has determined, that it is 'known' that when
proteins are toxic they act invariably by acute mechanism and in very
small doses. That is quite expedient, because that means one can just
feed large doses of the protein to the calf for a few days to prove
that no ill effect can come from the ingestion of the protein in the
feed in the long term.
===========
Prions are not toxic in the usual sense

What do you mean not toxic in the usual sense. We say that a substance
is toxic when it through its chemical action kills, injures, or
impairs an organism, and that is exactly what this prion-substance
seems to be doing.

that cause the body to make more of them clogging up the works.

Well, we are not sure if -that- is what they are doing, but even if
it was, so what. It is not disallowed for a toxic substance to work
in its own peculiar ways.