emerging infectious diseases

[noodledancer]

which do you think poses the greatest threat to human health in the 21st century?
if you pick other, post with specifics.

[aminorthreat55]

Prions.

[noodledancer]

probably should've included that in the poll. my bad.

[richter915]

what're prions? heard the word but don't recall it's meaning.

[richter915]

"prion

The word, for proteinaceous infectious agent, was coined in 1982 by neurologist Stanley Prusiner as part of a hypothesis regarding ailments bearing aetiologic resemblance to those caused by slow viruses (for instance, kuru). The hypothesis has been borne out by investigation. Prions are now believed responsible for several transmissible neurodegenerative diseases

Origin: proteinaceous infectious particle "

from CancerWEB med dictionary. I remember what it is now...but they're not infectious from what I remember learning...like kuru...it arose because in the culture, when an elder died, his descendants would it his brain...that brain contained the infectious prion which was then passed out and so on and so forth. So you'd have to physically ingest the protein in order to feel the effects. I could be wrong though.

[noodledancer]

yeah, you have to injest the protein (ie: mad cow), but it's still an infectious disease. think of all the diarrheal diseases out there. they require fecal-oral transmission (ingestion), but are still infectious diseases.

[richter915]

yeah, you have to injest the protein (ie: mad cow), but it's still an infectious disease. think of all the diarrheal diseases out there. they require fecal-oral transmission (ingestion), but are still infectious diseases.
ok, thanks for clearing it up.

[ranoa513]

Bird flu maybe?

[aminorthreat55]

Bird flu maybe?
HAHAHAHA I wish you were fucking joking.

[noodledancer]

Bird flu maybe?
that falls under pandemic influenza.

[katieb0nes]

i don't know. I think Ebola has the potential to come back, we still don't know what it came from originally and there's no cure. It's airborn, which means that it's impossible to contain and even if you did there's no sure way to know that the person didn't infect others because they didn't know that they had it. It starts very simply, which makes it the most scary and not to mention the end result. Although i'm not sure out of everything, it's all pretty scary to me, good thing im a medical major ha.