Monday, November 23, 2015

1992 IN CONFIDENCE TRANSMISSION OF ALZHEIMER TYPE PLAQUES TO PRIMATES POSSIBILITY ON A TRANSMISSIBLE PRION REMAINS OPEN

 

 
Sent: Monday, November 23, 2015 8:01 PM
Subject: 1992 IN CONFIDENCE TRANSMISSION OF ALZHEIMER TYPE PLAQUES TO PRIMATES POSSIBILITY ON A TRANSMISSIBLE PRION REMAINS OPEN
 

BSE101/1 0136
 
IN CONFIDENCE
 
CMO
 
From: . Dr J S Metiers DCMO
 
4 November 1992
 
TRANSMISSION OF ALZHEIMER TYPE PLAQUES TO PRIMATES
 
1. Thank you for showing me Diana Dunstan's letter. I am glad that MRC have recognised the public sensitivity of these findings and intend to report them in their proper context. 'This hopefully will avoid misunderstanding and possible distortion by the media to portray the results as having more greater significance than the findings so far justify.
 
2. Using a highly unusual route of transmission (intra-cerebral injection) the researchers have demonstrated the transmission of a pathological process from two cases one of severe Alzheimer's disease the other of Gerstmann-Straussler disease to marmosets. However they have not demonstrated the transmission of either clinical condition as the "animals were behaving normally when killed". As the report emphasises the unanswered question is whether the disease condition would have revealed itself if the marmosets had lived longer. They are planning further research to see if the conditions, as opposed to the partial pathological process, is transmissible.
 
what are the implications for public health?
 
3. The route 'of transmission is very specific and in the natural state of things highly unusual. However it could be argued that the results reveal a potential risk, in that brain tissue from these two patients has been shown to transmit a pathological process. Should therefore brain tissue from such cases be regarded as potentially infective? Pathologists, morticians, neuro surgeons and those assisting at neuro surgical procedures and others coming into contact with "raw" human brain tissue could in theory be at risk. However, on a priori grounds given the highly specific route of transmission in these experiments that risk must be negligible if the usual precautions for handling brain tissue are observed.
 
1
 
92/11.4/1.1
 
BSE101/1 0137
 
4. The other dimension to consider is the public reaction. To some extent the GSS case demonstrates little more than the transmission of BSE to a pig by intra-cerebral injection. If other prion diseases can be transmitted in this way it is little surprise that some pathological findings observed in GSS were also transmissible to a marmoset. But the transmission of features of Alzheimer's pathology is a different matter, given the much greater frequency of this disease and raises the unanswered question whether some cases are the result of a transmissible prion. The only tenable public line will be that "more research is required’’ before that hypothesis could be evaluated. The possibility on a transmissible prion remains open. In the meantime MRC needs carefully to consider the range and sequence of studies needed to follow through from the preliminary observations in these two cases. Not a particularly comfortable message, but until we know more about the causation of Alzheimer's disease the total reassurance is not practical.
 
J S METTERS Room 509 Richmond House Pager No: 081-884 3344 Callsign: DOH 832 llllYc!eS 2 92/11.4/1.2
 
 
>>> The only tenable public line will be that "more research is required’’ <<<
 
>>> possibility on a transmissible prion remains open<<<
 
O.K., so it’s about 23 years later, so somebody please tell me, when is "more research is required’’ enough time for evaluation ?
 
Self-Propagative Replication of Ab Oligomers Suggests Potential Transmissibility in Alzheimer Disease
 
Received July 24, 2014; Accepted September 16, 2014; Published November 3, 2014
 
 
*** Singeltary comment PLoS ***
 
Alzheimer’s disease and Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathy prion disease, Iatrogenic, what if ?
 
Posted by flounder on 05 Nov 2014 at 21:27 GMT
 
 
Thursday, October 1, 2015
 
Alzheimergate, re-Evidence for human transmission of amyloid-β pathology and cerebral amyloid angiopathy, Singeltary Submission to Nature
 
 
Wednesday, September 2, 2015
 
Clinically Unsuspected Prion Disease Among Patients With Dementia Diagnoses in an Alzheimer’s Disease Database
 
 
March 1989
 
COMMERCIAL IN CONFIDENCE
 
INACTIVATION OF SCRAPIE-LIKE AGENTS Some implications for the use of bovine material in sterile medical devices in the UK
 
 
Sunday, November 22, 2015
 
Effect of heating on the stability of amyloid A (AA) fibrils and the intra- and cross-species transmission of AA amyloidosis
 
 
Monday, November 23, 2015
 
Blood transmission studies of prion infectivity in the squirrel monkey (Saimiri sciureus): the Baxter study
 
 
Friday, January 10, 2014
 
vpspr, sgss, sffi, TSE, an iatrogenic by-product of gss, ffi, familial type prion disease, what it ???
 
Greetings Friends, Neighbors, and Colleagues,
 
 
Transmission of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease to a chimpanzee by electrodes contaminated during neurosurgery.
 
Gibbs CJ Jr, Asher DM, Kobrine A, Amyx HL, Sulima MP, Gajdusek DC. Laboratory of Central Nervous System Studies, National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD 20892.
 
Stereotactic multicontact electrodes used to probe the cerebral cortex of a middle aged woman with progressive dementia were previously implicated in the accidental transmission of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) to two younger patients. The diagnoses of CJD have been confirmed for all three cases. More than two years after their last use in humans, after three cleanings and repeated sterilisation in ethanol and formaldehyde vapour, the electrodes were implanted in the cortex of a chimpanzee. Eighteen months later the animal became ill with CJD. This finding serves to re-emphasise the potential danger posed by reuse of instruments contaminated with the agents of spongiform encephalopathies, even after scrupulous attempts to clean them.
 
 
Tuesday, May 26, 2015
 
*** Minimise transmission risk of CJD and vCJD in healthcare settings ***
 
Last updated 15 May 2015
 
 
 
Diagnosis and Reporting of Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease
 
Singeltary, Sr et al. JAMA.2001; 285: 733-734. Vol. 285 No. 6, February 14, 2001 JAMA
 
Diagnosis and Reporting of Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease
 
To the Editor: In their Research Letter, Dr Gibbons and colleagues1 reported that the annual US death rate due to Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) has been stable since 1985. These estimates, however, are based only on reported cases, and do not include misdiagnosed or preclinical cases. It seems to me that misdiagnosis alone would drastically change these figures. An unknown number of persons with a diagnosis of Alzheimer disease in fact may have CJD, although only a small number of these patients receive the postmortem examination necessary to make this diagnosis. Furthermore, only a few states have made CJD reportable. Human and animal transmissible spongiform encephalopathies should be reportable nationwide and internationally.
 
Terry S. Singeltary, Sr Bacliff, Tex
 
1. Gibbons RV, Holman RC, Belay ED, Schonberger LB. Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in the United States: 1979-1998. JAMA. 2000;284:2322-2323.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Terry S. Singeltary Sr.
 

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