Prions & BSE

[Richard H Clancey]

	Prions never contained DNA or RNA by definition.  They are
supposedly pathological forms of otherwise normal proteins which
duplicate themselves endlessly.

	It is still not known whether they are the causative agents of
BSE and similar diseases, or whether they even exist at all.

	In early 190, during the initial BSE scare, Lancet ran a small
item in the letters column by a researcher who was looking into the
question of whether beef sausages contained significant amounts of
neural tissue.  He published a micrograph of a typical suasage, and
pointed out that there was so much fat in a sausage that "the typical
demented lifetime sausage eater" faced a significantly graver threat
of fat-clogged blood vessels in the brain than BSE infection.