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Comment by inverted_flag | Hacker News Reader

> The CJDSS ruled out any prion disorder, including Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (CJD)

Thank god.

That was my knee-jerk scenario to think of too - especially given the rising prevalence of Chronic Wasting Disease in the US states near that part of Canada.

It's notable that the CJDSS director said they ruled out "known forms of prion disease" specifically, and the neuropathologist Jansen stated "no evidence for a prion disease was found" - I think the sentence you're quoting is actually misleading because it seems to suggest that there is negative evidence for a prion disorder, which there is not.

Seems like it would be exceedingly difficult, bordering on impossible, to make a categorical negative finding that there's no possibility of prions because you'd have to have a test to detect any misfolded protein at all.

I am not a medical professional, so take this opinion with a grain of salt, but it seems like it should theoretically be possible to test for a concentration of misfolded proteins that propagate themselves.

How complex or expensive this could be is not something I have any insight into at all, it could be something that takes millions of dollars and 20 years per test.

Only for ones that bind to the proteins in your testing apparatus though. If this hypothetical new prion doesn't bind to the slate of proteins in the test it wouldn't show anything. Unless there's an easy way to detect the fibrils they form more easily and generally.

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