by Heidi Stevenson
Apparently, the issue of pig rendering workers developing a neurological disease isn’t supposed to worry the rest of us. The Lancet has reported that there’s no infectious agent. The cause is tiny bits of pig brains being breathed in so that they enter the body through the nasal passages, resulting in an autoimmune disorder. So, we’re supposed to sit back, heave a big sigh of relief, and stop worrying.
I don’t think so. To the contrary, this may be the key that ties a host of neurological disorders, prions, and vaccines together into one neat package—with a tie-in to genetically modified organisms.
Workers who have breathed in aerosolized pig brain mist in abattoirs have been developing a nasty neurological disorder with striking similarities to bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE, also known as mad cow disease), kuru (a disease that struck southern Pacific cannibal islanders), multiple sclerosis, Gulf War syndrome, and macrophagic myofasciitis (MMF), a new neurological disorder known to be associated with the vaccine adjuvant aluminum.
Prions
Prions are a medical mystery. They’re believed to cause mad cow disease. They aren’t, though, infectious agents in the usual sense because they aren’t living in any sense. They don’t even contain fragments of DNA or RNA!
Bacteria are single-celled organisms. Some cause diseases, while others are necessary for life. Each bacterium contains a DNA molecule and RNA, which performs tasks directed by the DNA and carries messages to and from DNA.
Viruses are almost-cells. They have most of the factors of a cell, but are often not considered living organisms. They infect by invading cells and fooling them into creating more of the virus.
Prions, though, are not alive in any sense. Therefore, they cannot be killed, even at extreme temperatures. They are simply bits of proteins—literally parts of molecules. Originally, it was believed that they infected because they were misshapen, abnormally folded. The guess was that they infected cells by causing normal prions to become misshapen, too. That theory, though, has been proven false, though it is still commonly believed. (See Sanctuary: Bad Bad Prions from Discover, dated 9 January 2009 for an example of the ongoing belief.)
The first serious attack on the prion-as-infectious-agent theory was reported in Medical Hypotheses in 1997. The article makes the case that prions trigger an autoimmune response.(1) As becomes clear the more one looks into the issue, this makes sense and fits the facts as known.
The prions-as-infectious-agents theory has never fit the facts, nor does it make any logical sense. Infectious agents are things with a life imperative to keep them functioning and reproducing. Nothing about prions can be demonstrated to have any life. They do not contain any sort of self-maintained existence. An organism becomes infected when another organism, or semi-organism like a virus that contains a genetic code, invades. The invader uses the infected organism to survive and reproduce. There is no life force in a prion to seek out and infect another organism.
Prions are merely bits of protein—not even whole proteins—that are similar to bits of protein in our own bodies. Rather than trying to imply the implausible, that prions have a drive to replicate, it makes far more sense to suggest that their similarity to a molecule in an organism triggers an autoimmune response.
When a prion enters an organism abnormally, such as by inhalation or injection, the immune system sees them as foreign and manufactures antibodies to them. These antibodies seek out anything that’s similar to the protein bits—prions—to destroy them.
In the case of prions, the danger is their similarity to parts of our own bodies. Antibodies that develop to fight prions will attack cells in their own bodies with disastrous results. This is, in fact, the definition of an autoimmune disorder—the immune system going haywire and attacking the body’s own substance.
Multiple Sclerosis
Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a central nervous system disease in which the immune system has gone awry, attacking the myelin sheath, which is the covering layer of nerves. The symptoms consist of anything that can be affected by the nervous system. All areas of the body can be affected, but each individual is affected differently. One person may suffer great pain and deranged limb movement. Another may suffer mental impairment and visual loss. Each patient is different.
MS was first diagnosed in 1868 by Jean-Martin Charcot, professor of neurology at the University of Paris. Often referred to as the father of neurology, he examined the brain of a patient who had died from tremors and movement disorders. He found scars, usually referred to as plaques, in the brain.
Before World War II, it was known that some people vaccinated for viral illnesses, especially rabies, developed a neurological disease similar to MS. It had been assumed that the cause was rabies virus that hadn’t been completely inactivated. This, though, proved to be false.
In 1935, Dr. Thomas Rivers of the Rockefeller Institute demonstrated that injecting myelin tissue into laboratory animals would produce a disease similar to MS, thus showing that MS had nothing whatsoever to do with the rabies virus, or any other. Rather, vaccine-induced MS results from an autoimmune response to injected tissues similar to one’s own. The laboratory form came to be known as experimental allergic encephalomyelitis (EAE).
Scrapie
The first known spongiform encephalitis is scrapie, a disease of sheep. It’s believed to be caused by prions. It has been transmitted by innoculation to several other animals, including hamsters, mice, rats, voles, gerbils, mink, cattle, and some species of monkeys. Scrapie has been known for only 250 years, first found in Europe and reaching the US in 1947.
Scrapie is believed to be transmitted between sheep in one of two ways. The more common belief is that it’s transmitted from the ewe to offspring, though how is unknown. The other guess is that it’s harbored in pastures and eaten. Since scrapie is a kind of spongiform encephalitis, which we now know can be transmitted by inhalation, it may be that sheep inhale scrapie prions—protein bits—as they snuffle in their foraging. Many sheep are also fed artificial foods that include animal and fish products. They may inhale protein bits that result in a prion autoimmune disease.
Kuru
Kuru is a prion disease similar to Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease. It is known to have existed only among the cannibalistic Fore tribe of Papua New Guinea, and was first found and studied during the mid-twentieth century.
