Prion diseases are very dangerous and survive the extreme heat of cooking.
A friend of mine works in a hospital research lab and uses Electron Microscopy to photograph viruses. He explained to me that prion diseases are the only ones that ever scared him.
I stayed on a dairy farm in Cheddar Gorge in England years ago when Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE), or “Mad Cow Disease,” peaked in the 1990’s due to contaminated feed. It spread through cattle being fed meat and bone meal from infected animals, a practice banned in 1996.
I hope it is not transmissible through pet food to cats and dogs. They have “meat meal” listed in the ingredients.
Growing up my neighbors ate “squirrel brain pate.” I never tried it. Only later did I learn that it is a vector for this crazy prion thing Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease. They never got it to my understanding and might still be eating it with gusto. They seemed pretty normal.
My question with the prion diseases is why doesn’t everyone have it by now? Or all animals when it started infecting them? Like do scavengers and predators all have it from eating the things with prion disease?
Freegards