Gary Chandler is the CEO of Crossbow Communications. He has influenced public opinion and public policy on public health and environmental issues around the world for more than 30 years. He has authored several books for New York publishers. Chandler has been studying the global surge in neurodegenerative disease among mammals for more than 25 years.

On April 20, 2026, Chandler made this presentation to the Aging Congress, Aging and Gerontology 2026, a conference hosted in Dubai, UAE and attended by stakeholders from around the world. The following is that presentation in written and video form.

The Purpose Of The Presentation: Of the major diseases, neurodegenerative disease is the fastest-growing cause of death in the world. Transmissible spongiform encephalopathy (TSE) is the medical term for several forms of neurodegenerative disease, including amyotrophic lateral sclerosis ( ALS), Alzheimer’s disease, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD), Gerstmann-Sträussler-Scheinker syndrome, Huntington’s disease and Parkinson’s disease. TSE also is the medical term for mad cow disease in livestock and chronic wasting disease in wildlife. The only difference between the various forms of TSE is the region of the brain under attack or the species of the victim.

TSE also is known as prion (PREE-on) disease. The multitude of names adds to the confusion surrounding TSE, which makes it more challenging for epidemiologists to spot the propensity of the problem. Plus, TSEs are not reportable diseases in most countries.

More than 50 million people worldwide are living with neurodegenerative diseases, with the number rising dramatically. The most common conditions are Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease. Millions of people will go undiagnosed or misdiagnosed.

Hypothesis: As the medical term implies, the various forms of TSE are transmissible. People and animals afflicted with TSE produce great volumes of infectious waste, which contaminates the world around them. Infectious waste is fueling the spread of TSE in homes, healthcare facilities and communities around the world in people of all ages.

Prion Science: Dr. Stanley Prusiner, the Director of the Institute for Neurodegenerative Diseases at the University of California, San Francisco , earned the Nobel Prize in Physiology in 1997 for research on an infectious protein that he called a prion – the neurotoxin associated with TSE. As such, TSE also is known as prion disease.

Prusiner confirmed that TSEs, including Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease, are forms of prion disease. He confirmed that amyloid beta and tau are infectious prions.

Unfortunately, some critical aspects of Prusiner’s research are being ignored. As such, deadly proteins are migrating, mutating and multiplying throughout communities and watersheds around the world.

Prion infectivity is more than a hypothesis. It is award-winning science. Transmissible spongiform encephalopathy is a transmissible disease, as its name implies. Caregivers and family are at risk when exposed to people with TSE. Victims are infectious long before they are symptomatic.

There are several factors that can contribute to the cause of TSE. Exposure to prion contamination is definitely an X factor. Prion contamination is almost impossible to sterilize – even in the confines of hospitals and healthcare facilities. As such, prions migrate, mutate and multiply as they move from host to host.

Pathway Management: Prion pathways include every part of the human body.Blood, skin, urine, feces, mucus, organs and tissue. Those infected contaminate everything that they touch. Coughing and sneezing spreads prions. As mentioned earlier, prion contamination can’t be washed off. Autoclaves are ineffective. Thanks to the illegal dumping of infectious waste on land, we are now dealing with wide-scale contamination of land and entire watersheds. Species barriers to TSE are a myth.

Evidence: Hospitals have been sued successfully for negligence (exposed patients to contaminated medical equipment). Growth hormones have been harvested from people with TSE and administered to patients seeking to boost childhood growth. Since there hasn’t been any screening for prion disease, blood and organs from TSE victims have been donated to unsuspecting patients. Many hospitals now discard expensive medical equipment after a single use on patients with prion disease. Morticians follow strict infection-control measures when handling the body of someone who died from prion disease. These precautions include wearing personal protective equipment, placing the body in a leak-proof bag, and attempting to disinfect all surfaces and equipment. Unfortunately, they are handling many bodies which were never diagnosed.

There is not any credible evidence that Alzheimer’s disease, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, Parkinson’s disease and other forms of TSE are not transmissible.

Meanwhile, several studies have found an increased risk of dementia among older adults whose spouses have dementia. Neurodegenerative disease has more to do with an unstoppable neurotoxin than age. Teenagers are now dying of neurodegenerative disease.

Conclusion: Prevention. Treatment. Containment. If we hope to prevent neurodegenerative disease, we must treat TSE as an infectious disease in all cases. Families and caregivers must be advised. If we hope to contain prion contamination, we must defend all pathways from severely infected waste – lethal waste. It is impossible to manage all prion pathways, but the truth will go a very long way. we need a coordinated and cohesive approach to pathway management around the world. From source to sewage.

Thanks to sewage mismanagement, entire watersheds have been contaminated – putting food and water supplies at risk. We are dumping millions of tons of infectious waste in all of the wrong places around the world every year. In the United States, for example, the Environmental Protection Agency admits that its risk assessment on such dumping practices is incomplete. Unfortunately, the dumping and contamination continue. Extreme weather is spreading this infectious waste far and wide. Food and water supplies are exposed to prion contamination in most, if not all, countries.

Given the aggressive dynamics of infectious prion disease, we must act out of an abundance of caution regarding prion containment. Best practices are evolving, but we must optimize pathway management in homes, healthcare facilities, blood donation centers, dental offices, and throughout our communities. Since there is not a cure for transmissible spongiform encephalopathy, prevention is paramount. It will take a comprehensive and collective effort among stakeholders around the world to develop and continually refine best practices in pathway management. The challenge is immediate.

This post supports my presentation at the 11th Edition: Global Congress on Aging & Gerontology (Aging & Gerontology 2026).

For more information, please contact Gary Chandler Gary@CrossbowCommunications.com

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Bruce Willis has played tough guys in Hollywood productions for more than 40 years. Unfortunately, neurodegenerative disease brought his career to a halt two years ago.

Willis’ condition is worsening as he battles a form of frontotemporal dementia (FTD), a progressive brain disorder. He requires a full-time care team and a separate residence next to the family’s home. As his family knows, there is no known treatment or cure for FTD.

At age 70, Mr. Willis is reportedly no longer able to remember his acting career due to the progression of his condition. His wife, Emma Heming Willis, recently published a book to share her lessons with other families and to build a network of education, advocacy and support for all caregivers, “The Unexpected Journey: Finding Strength, Hope, and Yourself on the Caregiving Path.” The book is a guide to help caregivers take care of themselves.

“Caregivers need all the help that they can get,” she explains. “This isn’t a guide on how to be a caregiver. It’s about how to care for yourself while doing one of the hardest, most heartbreaking jobs in the world. Through my own experience and insights from leading experts, I hope to help other care partners feel less isolated, better prepared, and empowered to navigate this journey with strength and support.”

The day Emma Heming Willis’ husband was diagnosed with FTD, they were given a simple pamphlet and told to check back in a few months.

Emma walked out of that doctor’s appointment with fear and confusion. Emma felt alone and more isolated than ever. How would she care for her husband while parenting their young daughters? Emma wanted someone who’d been through it to explain the road ahead and how to navigate the twists, turns and blindspots. In her search for answers, she ended up writing the book for other families and caregivers.

“With grace, honesty, and unflinching courage, Emma has opened her heart to share the truth of caregiving—its heartbreaks and its hidden gifts,” said Demo Moore. “The Unexpected Journey is a lifeline for anyone navigating the complex world of dementia and it is her gift to every caregiver who has felt lost, overwhelmed, or alone. Through her story, Emma offers not only guidance, but also the kind of empathy that only comes from living it.”

There are several causes for neurodegenerative disease, including genetics, head trauma and exposure to neurotoxins. It’s impossible to say what triggered FTD in Mr. Willis.

Unfortunately, neurodegenerative disease, including Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) and others, is now the fastest-growing cause of death in the world. Misinformation, disinformation and mismanagement are compounding the problem.

“This book is a game changer for caregivers of loved ones with dementia,” said Maria Shriver, an active advocate for greater awareness, education and support for neurodegenerative disease. “This book will help millions of families, like hers, like yours, like mine, like everyone’s. It’s a book for our time.”

To order your copy of The Unexpected Journey, please, visit https://emmahemingwillis.com/the-unexpected-journey/

According to Nobel-Prize-winning physiologist Stanley Prusiner, ALS, Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, Huntington’s disease, and other forms of neurodegenerative disease are all forms of prion disease. There is no reason to believe that FTD is an exception. Hospitals and neurologists are well aware of the threats associated with neurodegenerative disease. Caregivers, medical professionals and others are in harm’s way. The negligence is criminal

The medical term for prion disease is transmissible spongiform encephalopathy, which includes ALS, Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, mad cow disease, chronic wasting disease. The operative word is transmissible.

There are proven strategies to help avert neurodegenerative disease, including nutrition, exercise and prion aversion. There is not a cure for prion disease. Preview and order the eBook now to defend yourself and your family.order the eBook now to defend yourself and your family.

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Neurodegenerative disease is the fastest-growing cause of death around the world. Deadly and infectious proteins known as prions have been fueling the global pandemic for years.

To help understand prion disease, a tech giant has stepped to the plate. Google developed a program called DeepMind to help crack the code and the mystery behind prions, especially those that misfold into deadly pathogens. AlphaFold is a significant AI breakthrough that is accelerating research in biology and medicine. 

AlphaFold’s database and tools are freely available, impacting diverse fields from disease treatment to the environmental challenges associated with neurotoxins. That’s the good news.

The bad news is that the prion pandemic refers to the growing global crisis of neurodegenerative diseases that are increasingly understood to be caused by prions, a deadly and transmissible form of protein. There is not a known cure for prion disease.

The most common form of prion disease in humans is Alzheimer’s disease. Parkinson’s disease, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, Huntington’s disease and ALS also are caused by infectious prions.

In livestock, prion disease is referred to as mad cow disease, while in deer, elk, moose and reindeer prion disease is known as chronic wasting disease. Contrary to popular belief and disinformation, these diseases are closely related. The biggest difference in the human forms of prion disease is the region of the brain that is under attack. There is no meaningful difference between the human forms of prion disease and the animal forms. We need both AI and common sense to see through the lies and mismanagement. Answers begin with the truth.

The bad news is that the prion pandemic refers to the growing global crisis of neurodegenerative diseases that are increasingly understood to be caused by prions, a deadly and transmissible form of protein. This phenomenon is now a public health disaster that is worsening due to misinformation, mismanagement, and reckless public policies. Here are the key aspects of the prion pandemic:

Prion aversion is considered crucial, emphasizing the need to avoid the contagion in diet, water, and the overall environment.

What are Prions? Prions (pree-ons) are a deadly and unstoppable form of protein that migrates, mutates, multiplies, and kills with unparalleled efficiency. Prions are not alive, meaning they cannot be killed, and neutralizing them is virtually impossible. They defy all attempts at sterilization and inactivation.

Prions cause fatal neurodegenerative disease by converting normal cellular prion protein into a toxic, misfolded form that erodes the brain and body. This often leads to a “wasting disease” causing loss of body and brain mass, and the development of sponge-like holes (vacuoles) in the brain.

Prions and Neurodegenerative Diseases

Dr. Stanley Prusiner, an American neuroscientist, discovered and characterized prions, earning a Nobel Prize in 1997 for his work.

In 2012 and again in 2019, Prusiner confirmed that Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, Huntington’s disease, and ALS are all forms of prion diseases.

The clinical term for prion disease is Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathy (TSE), with “transmissible” being the operative word.

TSE is considered a spectrum disease, meaning that conditions like Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) are on the same continuum. The primary difference among them is the initial region of the brain impacted and the specific prion mutation.

Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) is described as the most severe and aggressive form of human prion disease, often leading to death within weeks or months of diagnosis, behaving like “Alzheimer’s disease on steroids.”

Prion Transmission

Prions are highly transmissible among and between most mammals. The idea of a “species barrier” is a myth.

They spread through bodily fluids and cell tissue of infected individuals, including blood, saliva, mucus, milk, urine, feces, and skin. Environmental contamination caused by infectious victims is a significant concern:

Because of prion contamination, sewage treatment systems are serving as “weapons of mass destruction and “prion incubators” because they collect and distribute deadly prions from human waste. They also are spreading forever chemicals and other toxins. These systems cannot detect or stop prions.

The practice of land application of sewage sludge (biosolids) and wastewater reclamation is actively spreading prions into food and water supplies, contaminating crops, ranches, parks, and other open lands. Prions can remain infectious in soil and personal items for decades.

Medical procedures also pose a risk of prion transmission. Dental and surgical instruments exposed to people with prion disease are impossible to sterilize and must be discarded.

Scale and Impact of the Prion Pandemic

Neurodegenerative disease is now responsible for millions of lives each year. Its prevalence is predicted to quadruple by 2050, if not sooner. It is not a normal part of aging, with increasing numbers of young adults and teenagers affected.

Experts suggest that at least 25 percent of Alzheimer’s disease diagnoses are actually CJD. This misdiagnosis means millions of patients and caregivers are uninformed and exposed to a highly infectious disease.

CJD has not been declared a reportable disease across the U.S. and many other nations, hindering tracking and containment efforts. Family members and caregivers are frequently not warned about the risks. Spouses of those with Alzheimer’s disease or CJD are 600 percent more likely to contract the disease.

A definitive diagnosis of prion disease typically requires a lumbar puncture, brain biopsy or autopsy, which is rarely performed due to contamination concerns. Doctors often make diagnoses based on symptoms, which can be vague and overlap. A blood test is now available.

Governments and industries are accused of suppressing diagnoses and ignoring the prion threat, despite prions being initially classified as select agents, under the U.S. Bioterrorism Preparedness and Response Act of 2002. Select agents are classified as such because they pose an extreme risk to food, water, and health systems.

Prion disease is now a public health disaster that is worsening due to misinformation, mismanagement, and reckless public policies. Below is a summary of the prion pandemic:

• What are Prions?
  • Prions are a deadly and unstoppable form of protein that migrates, mutates, multiplies, and kills with unparalleled efficiency.
  • They are not alive, meaning they cannot be killed, and neutralizing them is virtually impossible. They also defy all attempts at sterilization and inactivation.
  • Prions cause fatal neurodegenerative disease by converting normal cellular prion protein into a toxic, misfolded form that erodes the brain and body. This often leads to a “wasting disease” causing loss of body and brain mass, and the development of sponge-like holes (vacuoles) in the brain.
• Prions and Neurodegenerative Diseases
  • Dr. Stanley Prusiner, an American neuroscientist, discovered and characterized prions, earning a Nobel Prize in 1997 for his work.
  • In 2012 and again in 2019, Prusiner confirmed that Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, Huntington’s disease, and ALS are all forms of prion diseases.
  • The clinical term for prion disease is Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathy (TSE), with “transmissible” being the operative word.
  • TSE is considered a spectrum disease, meaning that conditions like Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) are on the same continuum. The primary difference among them is the initial region of the brain impacted and the specific prion mutation.
  • Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) is described as the most severe and aggressive form of human prion disease, often leading to death within weeks or months of diagnosis, behaving like “Alzheimer’s disease on steroids.”
• Transmissibility and Spread
  • Prions are highly transmissible among and between most mammals. The sources emphasize that the idea of a species barrier is a myth.
  • They spread through bodily fluids and cell tissue of infected individuals, including blood, saliva, mucus, milk, urine, feces, and skin.
  • Environmental contamination is a significant concern:
    • Sewage treatment systems are identified as major “weapons of mass destruction” and “prion incubators” because they collect and distribute prions from human waste. These systems cannot detect or stop prions.
    • The practice of land application of sewage sludge (biosolids) and wastewater reclamation is actively spreading prions into food and water supplies, contaminating crops, ranches, parks, and other open lands.
    • Prions can remain infectious in soil and personal items for decades.
  • Medical procedures pose a risk: surgical instruments exposed to prions are impossible to sterilize and must be discarded.
• Scale and Impact of the Pandemic
  • Widespread misdiagnosis and underdiagnosis are critical issues:
    • Experts suggest that at least 25% of Alzheimer’s diagnoses are actually CJD.
    • This misdiagnosis means millions of patients and caregivers are uninformed and exposed to an aggressive, highly infectious disease.
    • A definitive diagnosis of prion disease typically requires a brain biopsy or autopsy, which is rarely performed due to contamination concerns. Doctors often make diagnoses based on symptoms, which can be vague and overlap.
  • CJD has not been declared a reportable disease across the U.S. and many other nations, hindering tracking and containment efforts. Family members and caregivers are frequently not warned about the risks.
  • Spouses of those with Alzheimer’s or CJD are 600 percent more likely to contract the disease.
  • The economic burden is immense, with Alzheimer’s disease alone being the most expensive disease in the United States, projected to cost more than $1 trillion by 2050.
  • Governments and industries are accused of suppressing diagnoses and ignoring the prion threat, despite prions being classified as “select agents” posing an extreme risk to food, water, and health systems under the U.S. Bioterrorism Preparedness and Response Act of 2002.
• Lack of Cure and Prevention
  • There is currently no effective treatment or cure for CJD or Alzheimer’s disease. Existing treatments focus only on easing symptoms.
  • Strategies to avert neurodegenerative disease include nutrition, exercise, and prion aversion.
  • Smart nutrition is suggested to help ease symptoms and potentially avert the disease. This includes recommendations like limiting saturated fats, increasing vegetable and polyunsaturated fat intake, and consuming specific vitamins and supplements.
  • Prion aversion is considered crucial, emphasizing the need to avoid the contagion in diet, water, dental/medical facilities and the overall environment.

The medical term for prion disease is transmissible spongiform encephalopathy, which includes ALS, Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, mad cow disease, chronic wasting disease. The operative word is transmissible.

There are proven strategies to help avert neurodegenerative disease, including nutrition, exercise and prion aversion. There is not a cure for prion disease. Preview and order the eBook now to defend yourself and your family.

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The U.S. FDA approved a new blood test that detects tau and amyloid plaques in the brain, a key indicator of prion disease, including Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. The test detects these deadly proteins in blood, which is not good news.

The test is cleared for use in adults aged 55 and older who exhibit signs and symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease (and should detect other forms of prion disease). The Lumipulse Plasma Ratio test, developed by Fujirebio Diagnostics, offers a less invasive and more accessible alternative to traditional diagnostic methods.

The blood test measures the levels of two proteins, pTau217 and β-amyloid 1-42, in human plasma. It then calculates their ratio, to determine the presence or absence of amyloid plaques in the brain. Clinical trials have shown that the Lumipulse test demonstrates 91.7 percent accuracy in identifying amyloid plaques in positive cases and 97.3 percent accuracy when confirming their absence in negative cases.

Two FDA-approved drugs, Leqembi and Kisunla, have shown promise in slowing the progression of Alzheimer’s disease by targeting and removing amyloid plaques. However, their use requires confirmation of plaque presence, which underscores the importance of the new blood test.

Both the blood test and the treatments are primarily relevant for individuals with early-stage Alzheimer’s disease and those who exhibit symptoms.

The blood test helps confirm the presence of amyloid plaques, which is important for determining eligibility for treatment.

Biogen is betting big on Leqembi, but it must overcome concerns about cost, efficacy and side effects. Biogen has partnered with Fujirebio, while rival Eisai is collaborating with C2N, to clinically advance and commercialize blood tests that can detect Alzheimer’s disease.

The test can’t distinguish which region of the brain is under attack. After a positive test, neurologists must observe symptoms, including movement and memory, to distinguish between Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. Currently, most insurance companies, including Medicare, Medicaid, and private insurance, do not cover the cost of the test.

Clearly, the blood test is a big step in the right direction. Millions of people are going undiagnosed and untreated. Unfortunately, neurodegenerative disease will continue to escalate around the world. Answers begin with the truth.

The bad news is that Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease are all forms of prion disease, which is a much more accurate and inclusive word when discussing neurodegenerative disease. Prion disease strikes most, if not all mammals, including cattle, deer, elk, moose, reindeer, camels, elephants, whales and many more. The outbreak has been in motion for years. So has the cover up.

A prion (pree-on) is a deadly form of protein that infects the entire body, while consuming the brain. Prion disease is clinically known as transmissible spongiform encephalopathy (TSE). As mentioned above, TSEs are transmissible. Most hospitals, neurologists, surgeons, coroners and even morticians are aware of the prion threat. Unfortunately, family members and caregivers are not being warned.

As mentioned earlier, the new blood test detects tau and beta amyloid in blood. Unfortunately, tau and beta amyloid also are known as prions.

Dr. Stanley Prusiner won the Nobel Prize in 1997 for his pioneering work on prions. In June 2012, Prusiner confirmed that Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, Huntington’s and even ALS are prion diseases. Unfortunately, much of his science is being ignored by policymakers and industry. Corruption and collusion among government and industry has put the entire planet at risk to the prion pathogen.

The bad news is that people and other mammals with prion disease are infectious. People are infecting animals and animals are infecting people. People are infecting people. As populations of people and animals get sicker, waste streams become deadlier. We all are caught in the crossfire.

“Good news is rare in the world of prions,” said Gary Chandler, CEO of Crossbow Communications. “This new blood test is no exception. This so-called breakthrough is just further confirmation that prions are in blood, bodily fluids and cell tissue of victims. Deadly prions migrate, mutate, multiply and kill. People with prion disease are a serious threat to public health.”

In other words, people with prion disease are walking time bombs. They are contaminating the world around them in ways that can’t be sterilized or stopped. The misinformation and mismanagement of prions is criminal. Thanks to lies by the US EPA and others, prions are being injected into our food and water supplies. Thanks to lies by other policymakers, the blood supply and blood products are hopelessly contaminated. Medical and dental facilities are exposing patients to deadly prions daily.

People with prion disease are donating blood and organs to innocent and unsuspecting victims. Municipalities and farmers are dumping tons of human sewage sludge (infectious waste) on farms and ranches, where it proceeds to permanently infect our food and water supplies. Golf courses, parks, forests and beyond are part of this illegal dumping program (missing risk assessments). The blood test is an alarm bell that could have and should have been sounded years ago.

Prion disease is now the fastest-growing cause of death in the world. The truth is more elusive than a cure. Many factors are contributing to the surge, including misinformation, disinformation and reckless public policies.

The medical term for prion disease is transmissible spongiform encephalopathy, which includes ALS, Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, mad cow disease, chronic wasting disease. The operative word is transmissible.

Despite the smoke and mirrors, the major difference between all of these forms of neurodegenerative disease is the species under attack by infectious prions. The primary difference between Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease, for example, is the region of the brain that is under attack by the pathological protein.

Livestock, wildlife and humans have been exchanging prion disease for years. It’s a vicious circle that can’t be stopped. The truth is our only hope. The new blood test offers hope in the form of truth. Answers begin with the truth.

There are proven strategies to help avert neurodegenerative disease, including nutrition, exercise and prion aversion. There is not a cure for prion disease. Preview and order the eBook now to defend yourself and your family.

The post Blood Test For Alzheimer’s Disease appeared first on Neuroscience News.

Prion disease is the fastest-growing cause of death in the world. It is ravaging most land and sea mammals, including humans, livestock, deer, whales and dolphins. So far, there isn’t a vaccine to prevent or cure this fatal neurodegenerative disease.

Prions are misfolded proteins that can cause fatal neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) in humans. These same proteins cause mad cow disease (BSE) in cattle and chronic wasting disease in deer, elk, moose and reindeer. These diseases are particularly challenging because prions are highly resistant to conventional sterilization methods and can remain infectious and deadly for years, if not forever.

Dr. Stanley Prusiner, an American neuroscientist from the University of California at San Francisco, earned a Nobel Prize in 1997 for discovering and characterizing deadly prions and prion disease. President Obama awarded Prusiner the National Medal of Science in 2010 to recognize the importance of his research.

Prusiner confirmed that Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, Huntington’s and ALS are prion diseases.

The medical name for prion disease is Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathy (TSE). The operative word is “transmissible.” Prion disease is a spectrum disease, where Alzheimer’s disease and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) are part of the same spectrum. CJD is much more aggressive, highly infectious and clearly mismanaged. The same can be said of Alzheimer’s disease since no one knows where along the spectrum the disease becomes infectious. A prudent mind would deduce that prion disease along the entire spectrum is infectious.

Humans, livestock and wildlife inflicted with prion disease have the infection throughout their bodies. Prions are in all bodily fluids and cell tissue. Blood, saliva, mucus, milk, urine and feces become prion pathways. Cell tissue, organs and the brain are infected. Everything that victims touch becomes hopelessly contaminated and impossible to sterilize. Blood supplies are at risk. Dental and surgical instruments can’t be sterilized once exposed to someone with prion disease. Organ donations are a death sentence. Hospitals will dispose of equipment contaminated by CJD patients, while sending patients home to die, where they proceed to expose family and friends, while contaminating entire communities. 

It’s virtually impossible to sterilize anything exposed to a person with prion disease. Hospital systems are now on high alert after several lawsuits regarding prion exposure. Not only is it impossible to neutralize prions, they migrate, mutate and multiply everywhere they are found.

“CJD patients should be quarantined, but CJD isn’t even a reportable disease across the U.S. and most countries,” said Gary Chandler, CEO of Crossbow Communications and a leading advocate for the truth about prion disease. “Neurologists are just guessing when distinguishing between CJD and Alzheimer’s disease. Mismanagement of this entire spectrum is fueling a public health disaster.”

Wastewater treatment plants have become prion incubators and distributors as sewage sludge is being dumped on crops, ranches, parks, golf courses, gardens, school grounds and beyond. Food and water supplies around the world have been hopelessly contaminated with deadly prions. Prions are microscopic so they are easily spread by wind, rainwater and floods. It’s not surprising that neurodegenerative disease is exploding around the world in most mammals.

Why is Prion Detection So Important?

Once considered to be separate, isolated medical oddities, the scientific community began connecting the dots between the many forms of prion diseases in the mid-20th century, and finally identified the underlying prion protein in 1985. Yet even after this discovery, developing diagnostic tests and possible treatments, let alone even studying the conditions, remained challenging.

In the late 1980s, a sizable outbreak of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (mad cow disease) in European cattle and several hundred associated cases in humans demonstrated how rapidly prion disease can spread. These events spurred the medical community to prioritize research toward an efficient, mass-producible test that could be used to screen for the presence of prions in living patients, foods, and animal-based goods. 

• Public Health: Prion diseases are rare but devastating, leading to severe neurological damage and ultimately death. Early detection is crucial for preventing the spread of these diseases and protecting public health.
• Food Safety: Prion contamination in food products, particularly meat, poses a significant risk. Effective detection methods are essential for ensuring food safety and preventing outbreaks.
• Research: Understanding prion biology and developing effective treatments requires reliable and sensitive detection methods for research purposes.

Bio-Rad plays a vital role in prion detection by providing a range of products and services that support research, diagnostics, and food safety:

• Antibodies: Bio-Rad offers a comprehensive portfolio of high-quality antibodies specifically designed for prion detection. These antibodies are essential for various techniques like Western blotting, immunohistochemistry, and ELISA.
• ELISA Kits: Bio-Rad provides sensitive and reliable ELISA kits for detecting prion proteins in various samples, including blood, cerebrospinal fluid, and tissue. These kits are widely used in research and diagnostic settings.
• Western Blotting Reagents: Bio-Rad offers a complete range of reagents for Western blotting, a technique used to identify and quantify prion proteins in samples.
• Immunohistochemistry Reagents: Bio-Rad provides reagents for immunohistochemistry, a technique that allows for the visualization of prion proteins in tissue samples.
• Research Tools: Bio-Rad offers a variety of research tools, including cell culture reagents, protein purification kits, and molecular biology reagents, which are essential for studying prion biology and developing new detection methods.

By providing these essential tools and reagents, Bio-Rad empowers researchers, diagnostic labs, and food safety agencies to effectively detect and monitor prions. This contributes to:

• Early Diagnosis: Enabling faster and more accurate diagnosis of prion diseases, leading to better patient care and management.
• Food Safety Assurance: Ensuring the safety of food products by detecting prion contamination and preventing outbreaks.
• Scientific Advancement: Supporting research efforts to understand prion biology and develop effective treatments for these devastating diseases.

The medical term for prion disease is transmissible spongiform encephalopathy, which includes ALS, Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, mad cow disease, chronic wasting disease. The operative word is transmissible.

Despite the smoke and mirrors, the major difference between all of these forms of neurodegenerative disease is the species under attack by infectious prions. The primary difference between Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease, for example, is the region of the brain that is under attack by the pathological protein.

Prion detection is crucial for public health, food safety, and scientific advancement. Bio-Rad’s commitment to providing high-quality products and services for prion detection plays a vital role in supporting these critical areas.

There are proven strategies to help avert neurodegenerative disease, including nutrition, exercise and prion aversion. There is not a cure for prion disease. Preview and order the eBook now to defend yourself and your family.

The post Prion Detection Saves Lives appeared first on Neuroscience News.

Researchers have developed a new gene-silencing tool called CHARMs (Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats Modulators). This tool has shown promise as a potential treatment for many forms of neurodegenerative disease.

Prion disease is a fatal brain disorder that afflicts mammals. Prion disease is incurable and highly transmissible. In some cases, it is inherited.

Prion disease is better known as Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, mad cow disease, chronic wasting disease and more.

Prion disease, which leads to swift neurodegeneration and death, is caused by the presence of misshapen versions of the prion protein. These cause a cascade effect in the brain: the faulty prion proteins deform other proteins, and together these proteins not only stop functioning properly but also form toxic aggregates that kill neurons. Mad cow disease is infectious. So are other forms of prion disease.

New therapies, including antibodies, are showing promise in slowing the disease progression, but there isn’t a silver bullet on the horizon. Gene editing could be the next frontier against prion infection.

Drug development is typically slow: The pipeline from basic research discoveries that provide the basis for a new drug to clinical trials and then production of a widely available medicine can take decades. But decades can feel impossibly far off to someone who currently has a fatal disease. Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard Senior Group Leader Sonia Vallabh is acutely aware of the race against time, because the topic of her research is a neurodegenerative and ultimately fatal disease — fatal familial insomnia, a type of prion disease — that she will almost certainly develop as she ages.

Vallabh and her husband, Eric Minikel, switched careers and became researchers after they learned that Vallabh carries a disease-causing version of the prion protein gene and that there is no effective therapy for fatal prion diseases. The two now run a lab at the Broad Institute, where they are working to develop drugs that can prevent and treat these diseases, and their deadline for success is not based on grant cycles or academic expectations but on the ticking time bomb in Vallabh’s genetic code.

That is why Vallabh was excited to discover, when she entered into a collaboration with Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research member Jonathan Weissman, that Weissman’s group likes to work at full throttle. In less than two years, Weissman, Vallabh, and their collaborators have developed a set of molecular tools called CHARMs that can turn off disease-causing genes such as the prion protein gene — as well as, potentially, genes coding for many other proteins implicated in neurodegenerative and other diseases — and they are refining those tools to be good candidates for use in human patients.

Although the tools still have many hurdles to pass before the researchers will know if they work as therapeutics, the team is encouraged by the speed with which they have developed the technology thus far.

“The spirit of the collaboration since the beginning has been that there was no waiting on formality,” Vallabh says. “As soon as we realized our mutual excitement to do this, everything was off to the races.”

Co-corresponding authors Weissman and Vallabh and co-first authors Edwin Neumann, a graduate student in Weissman’s lab, and Tessa Bertozzi, a postdoc in Weissman’s lab, describe CHARM — which stands for Coupled Histone tail for Autoinhibition Release of Methyltransferase — in a paper published today in the journal Science.

“With the Whitehead and Broad Institutes right next door to each other, I don’t think there’s any better place than this for a group of motivated people to move quickly and flexibly in the pursuit of academic science and medical technology,” says Weissman, who is also a professor of biology at MIT and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator. “CHARMs are an elegant solution to the problem of silencing disease genes, and they have the potential to have an important position in the future of genetic medicines.”

Most drugs work by targeting a protein. CHARMs, however, work further upstream, turning off the gene that codes for the faulty protein so that the protein never gets made in the first place. CHARMs do this by epigenetic editing, in which a chemical tag gets added to DNA in order to turn off or silence a target gene. Unlike gene editing, epigenetic editing does not modify the underlying DNA — the gene itself remains intact. However, like gene editing, epigenetic editing is stable, meaning that a gene switched off by CHARM should remain off. This would mean patients would only have to take CHARM once, as opposed to protein-targeting medications that must be taken regularly as the cells’ protein levels replenish.

Research in animals suggests that the prion protein isn’t necessary in a healthy adult, and that in cases of disease, removing the protein improves or even eliminates disease symptoms. In a person who hasn’t yet developed symptoms, removing the protein should prevent disease altogether. In other words, epigenetic editing could be an effective approach for treating genetic diseases such as inherited prion diseases. The challenge is creating a new type of therapy.

Fortunately, the team had a good template for CHARM: a research tool called CRISPRoff that Weissman’s group previously developed for silencing genes. CRISPRoff uses building blocks from CRISPR gene editing technology, including the guide protein Cas9 that directs the tool to the target gene. CRISPRoff silences the targeted gene by adding methyl groups, chemical tags that prevent the gene from being transcribed, or read into RNA, and so from being expressed as protein. When the researchers tested CRISPRoff’s ability to silence the prion protein gene, they found that it was effective and stable.

Several of its properties, though, prevented CRISPRoff from being a good candidate for a therapy. The researchers’ goal was to create a tool based on CRISPRoff that was just as potent but also safe for use in humans, small enough to deliver to the brain, and designed to minimize the risk of silencing the wrong genes or causing side effects.

Read The Full Story About Gene Editing and Prion Disease

Prion disease is now the fastest-growing cause of death in the world. The truth is more elusive than a cure. Many factors are contributing to the surge, including misinformation, disinformation and reckless public policies.

The medical term for prion disease is transmissible spongiform encephalopathy, which includes ALS, Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, mad cow disease, chronic wasting disease. The operative word is transmissible.

Despite the smoke and mirrors, the major difference between all of these forms of neurodegenerative disease is the species under attack by infectious prions. The primary difference between Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease, for example, is the region of the brain that is under attack by the pathological protein.

There are proven strategies to help avert neurodegenerative disease, including nutrition, exercise and prion aversion. There is not a cure for prion disease. Preview and order the eBook now to defend yourself and your family.

The post Can Gene Editing Prevent Prion Disease appeared first on Neuroscience News.

Prion disease is now the fastest-growing cause of death in the world. The truth is more elusive than a cure. Many factors are contributing to the surge, including misinformation, disinformation and reckless public policies.

The medical term for prion disease is transmissible spongiform encephalopathy, which includes ALS, Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, mad cow disease, chronic wasting disease. The operative word is transmissible. 

Despite the smoke and mirrors, the major difference between all of these forms of neurodegenerative disease is the species under attack by infectious prions. The primary difference between Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease, for example, is the region of the brain that is under attack by the pathological protein.

Livestock, wildlife and humans have been transmitting prion disease back and forth for years. It’s a vicious circle that can’t be stopped. The truth is our only hope. There is no credible, scientific research that proves that Alzheimer’s disease is not a transmissible disease. Deniers are betting their lives and others on wishful thinking.

Prion Disease

TSEs are not limited to humans. When livestock contract prion disease, it is called mad cow disease. When wildlife contract prion disease, it is called chronic wasting disease. Among humans, the only differences between these forms of prion disease is the region of the brain that is being attacked by prions. If the presenting symptom is memory, the diagnosis is Alzheimer’s disease. If the presenting symptom is a movement disorder, the diagnosis is Parkinson’s disease and so on. No two cases are the same in terms of pathology because prions mutate as they move up the food chain.

There are now millions of prion mutations circulating in the natural and man-made world. Species barriers are a myth. Livestock and wildlife are exposed to prions from humans because we dump infectious waste on farms, ranches and forests. People are exposed to prions from livestock and wildlife because of many vectors.

Prions are a deadly and unstoppable form of protein. Prions migrate, mutate, multiply and kill with unparalleled efficiency.

Prions were first discovered in the late 1980s as a protein-containing biological agent that replicates itself in living cells without nucleic acid. Prions are not alive, which means that they can’t be killed. Neutralizing them is virtually impossible. With each mutation, they become deadlier and more resistant.

Prions cause fatal neurodegenerative disease in humans and other mammals by converting the cellular version of prion protein into a toxic form that erodes the brain and body. Prion disease often is described as a wasting disease that causes a loss of body mass and brain mass.

Disease Transmission

As mentioned above, TSEs are transmissible. Most hospitals, neurologists, surgeons, coroners and even morticians are aware of the prion threat. Unfortunately, family members and caregivers are not being warned.

Victims should be quarantined because prions are in the milk, urine, feces, blood, saliva, mucus, skin and cell tissue of all victims–all human byproducts that are washed, dumped, or flushed down sinks and toilets. One can assume that the waste is extra infectious when it comes from funeral homes, nursing homes, hospitals, dental offices, veterinarians, slaughterhouses and some laboratories.

“There is now real evidence of the potential transmissibility of Alzheimer’s,” says Thomas Wiesniewski M.D. a prion and Alzheimer’s researcher at New York University School of Medicine. “In fact, this ability to transmit an abnormal conformation is probably a universal property of amyloid-forming proteins.”

Since deadly prions spread through the bodily fluids and tissue of those carrying prion disease, that’s a problem. Prions shed from infected humans are highly transmissible. 

Prion disease has killed millions of people around the world over the past century. Prion contamination is impacting more people and more families than ever today. It’s also killing livestock, wildlife and sea mammals. The connection is undeniable. Wastewater management, industrial agriculture and modern medicine are spreading these neurotoxins far and wide.

Despite millions of deaths every year, experts suggest that the prevalence of Alzheimer’s disease alone will quadruple by 2050, if not sooner. In the United States, for example, deaths from Alzheimer’s disease increased 146 percent from 2000 to 2018, while deaths from heart disease decreased 14 percent. Given the vast numbers of people with Alzheimer’s disease who go undiagnosed, the real number is probably double the official statistics. At $355 billion a year, Alzheimer’s disease is already the most expensive disease in the United States. The problem could bankrupt many nations.

Alzheimer’s disease is surging at a rate of at least 15 percent per year in many countries–the largest increase of all major causes of death. It accounted for 121,499 documented deaths (and thousands more of undiagnosed and undocumented ones) in the U.S. alone in 2019. A similar pattern is emerging around the globe–in some regions much more than others.

In the U.S., nearly one in every five Medicare dollars is spent on people with Alzheimer’s disease or another dementia. These costs will rise as baby boomers age and the prion contagion spreads, soaring to more than $1 trillion in 2050.

Unfortunately, neurologists have withheld millions of diagnoses from patients and their families. Without such suppression, the public costs outlined above would have been much higher. By suppressing diagnoses, the burden of care is being placed firmly on families instead of insurance companies. According to an investigative report by the Alzheimer’s Association, physicians in the U.S. only inform 45 percent of patients about their Alzheimer’s disease diagnosis. In addition to ethical concerns, such suppression helps shade the silent pandemic. Meanwhile, millions more go undiagnosed and misdiagnosed every year.

A groundbreaking study suggested that Alzheimer’s disease actually causes six times more deaths than official statistics indicate. In reality, the study said that Alzheimer’s disease was the underlying cause in more than 500,000 deaths in 2010. Unfortunately, Alzheimer’s deaths are often attributed to conditions, such as pneumonia. It appears that more accurate numbers make Alzheimer’s disease the third-leading cause of death in the United States, behind heart disease and cancer. Researchers at the Rush University Medical Center in Chicago led the study and published their results in 2013 in the medical journal Neurology.

Dr. Stanley Prusiner, an American neuroscientist from the University of California at San Francisco, earned a Nobel Prize in 1997 for discovering and characterizing deadly prions and prion disease. Notice the last word on the right side. The Swiss word for infection is “infektion.” Yes, prions are infectious. All TSEs are infectious by definition.

President Obama awarded Prusiner the National Medal of Science in 2010 to recognize the importance of his research. In June 2012, Prusiner confirmed that Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, Huntington’s disease, and even ALS are prion diseases. 

“This shows beyond a shadow of a doubt that amyloid beta and tau are both prions, and that Alzheimer’s disease is a double-prion disorder in which these two rogue proteins together destroy the brain,” said Stanley Prusiner, MD, the study’s senior author and director of the UCSF Institute for Neurodegenerative Diseases, part of the UCSF Weill Institute for Neurosciences. “The fact that prion levels also appear linked to patient longevity should change how we think about the way forward for developing treatments for the disease. We need a sea change in Alzheimer’s disease research, and that is what this paper does. This paper might catalyze a major change in AD research.”

In 2019, Dr. Stanley Prusiner again confirmed that Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease are forms of prion disease.

“Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is the most common neurodegenerative disease in humans and will pose a considerable challenge to healthcare systems in the coming years,” Prusiner said. “Aggregation of the β-amyloid (Aβ) peptide within the brain is thought to be an initiating event in AD pathogenesis. Many recent studies in transgenic mice have provided evidence that Aβ aggregates become self-propagating (infectious) during disease, leading to a cascade of protein aggregation in the brain, which may underlie the progressive nature of AD. The ability to self-propagate and the existence of distinct strains reveals that Aβ aggregates exhibit many properties like prions (proteinaceous infectious particle). The evidence that Aβ can become a prion during disease, Aβ prions may be important for understanding the pathobiology of AD.”

A study published in the journal Nature adds to the evidence about the transmissibility of Alzheimer’s disease between people. A second study by the same scientist in early 2016 supports the claim. 

Prion disease is a spectrum disease, where Alzheimer’s disease and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) are on the same spectrum. The primary difference between these two forms of prion disease is that they attack the same region of the brain at different speeds. CJD is highly infectious and clearly mismanaged. The same can be said of Alzheimer’s disease.

Claudio Soto, PhD, professor of neurology at the University of Texas Medical School in Houston, and his colleagues confirmed the presence of prions in urine. Prions infect the entire body and all bodily fluids of its victims, including blood, mucus and saliva. Caregivers for anyone with neurodegenerative disease beware.

“Our findings open the possibility that some of the sporadic Alzheimer’s disease cases may arise from an infectious process, which occurs with other neurological diseases such as mad cow disease and its human form, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease,” said Soto. “The underlying mechanism of Alzheimer’s disease is very similar to the prion diseases. It involves a normal protein that becomes misshapen and is able to spread by transforming good proteins to bad ones. The bad proteins accumulate in the brain, forming plaque deposits (and inflammation), which kill neurons.”

As the prion disease pandemic explodes, municipal wastewater treatment systems are becoming weapons of mass destruction. They are collection points and distributors for prions in blood, saliva, mucus, urine, feces, tissue and skin. Since we now dump most of our sewage sludge on crops, ranches, parks, playgrounds, golf courses and gardens, prions are contaminating our food and water supplies more and more every day.

Prion disease is a threat to families, caregivers, healthcare systems and entire communities. Government and many industries won’t talk about the transmissible nature of prion disease, but you won’t see many neurologists touching their patients anymore. Diagnoses are made quickly from across the room. When someone has CJD, hospitals won’t admit them due to prion risks.

The implications represent an environmental disaster and a public health disaster. There is no cure for prion disease. It is always fatal. Victims spread deadly prions with a touch, a sneeze or cough. Prions are Once a cup or a spoon, for example, has been exposed to prions, those items are permanently contaminated. Prion aversion is the only way to prevent these forms of neurodegenerative disease.

According to research from Duke University, caregivers of someone with dementia are six times more likely to develop the condition themselves.

According to neuroscientist Dr. Laura Manuelidis, at least 25 percent of Alzheimer’s diagnoses are actually Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD), which is further up the prion spectrum. CJD, without dispute, is extremely infectious. The primary difference between the two is severity of symptoms. 

CJD, without dispute, is extremely infectious to caregivers and loved ones. Hospitals, clinics, doctors and nurses are defending themselves from transmissible spongiform encephalopathy, but family members and caregivers are not being warned about TSEs. In fact, the CJD Foundation and the Alzheimer’s Association are spreading misinformation about the threat. Millions of patients and caregivers are being misinformed, misguided and exposed to an extremely aggressive version of prion disease.

Millions of cases of deadly and infectious CJD are being misdiagnosed as Alzheimer’s disease. For that reason alone, we should assume that all cases of Alzheimer’s disease are infectious. In reality, the entire spectrum from early onset Alzheimer’s disease to Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease is infectious.

Neurologists are just flipping a coin to make a diagnosis in many cases because there is no definitive difference other than severity. What should be a very important distinction and diagnosis is just a guess.

Meanwhile, CJD has not been declared a reportable disease across the U.S. and many other nations.

Why does it matter?

• Should people with Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease donate blood or organs?
• Should surgeons, dentists and other healthcare professionals use equipment on people with prion disease and then on the general public? Medical and dental equipment contaminated with prions are forever contaminated. Hospitals, for example, have been successfully sued over prion contamination.
• Should infectious waste be regulated and isolated? Should it be dumped on open ground, including farms, ranches, parks, forests, playgrounds and beyond?
• Should infectious waste be dumped on open land within our watersheds?
• Shouldn’t family, friends and caregivers be warned about the infectious environment that surrounds those who have neurodegenerative disease?
• Mad cow disease is admittedly infectious to humans. Why are we discounting the risks of chronic wasting disease being transmitted to humans? There is no species barrier.

Answers begin with the truth. Defend yourself and your family with facts.

There are proven strategies to help avert neurodegenerative disease, including nutrition, exercise and prion aversion. There is not a cure for prion disease. Preview and order the eBook now to defend yourself and your family.

The post Alzheimer’s Disease Is Transmissible appeared first on Neuroscience News.

Researchers have developed a test that accurately identifies Parkinson’s disease by examining a skin sample. This development is both good news and bad news.

The good news is that a simple skin biopsy can accurately detect alpha-synuclein–a toxic protein–in our body, which can lead to earlier intervention and improved disease management, but not a cure. The new skin test is described as a test for Parkinson’s disease, but the test can’t distinguish between Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease or other forms of prion disease.

Once the toxic protein is identified, a neurologist will assess which symptoms the patient is experiencing. Memory issues will generate a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease. Movement disorders will generate a diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease. If a patient is experiencing both issues at a more severe level, the doctor might diagnose the issue as Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD).

The bad news is that the highly infectious protein behind many forms of neurodegenerative disease is in skin, which can transmit neurodegenerative disease to humans and other mammals.

Unfortunately, once infected, prions spread throughout the entire body, including cell tissue and bodily fluids. As such, people who have prion disease are highly infectious. The truth is that people who have prion disease are infecting the world around them every day. Adding to the bad news is that researchers, government and industry are in denial (a polite word) about the transmissibility of prion disease. 

A variety of factors can trigger neurodegenerative disease, including genetics, head trauma and poor nutrition. Today, however, the greatest factor behind the explosive growth is a neurotoxin that is spreading through our food, water, health systems and beyond. Misinformation, disinformation, corruption and collusion are compounding the threat.

The denial is understandable because there isn’t a solution for this existential threat. Neurodegenerative disease is now the fastest-growing cause of death on the planet.

Prion Research Earns Nobel Prize

Dr. Stanley Prusiner, an American neuroscientist from the University of California at San Francisco, earned a Nobel Prize in 1997 for discovering and characterizing prions and deadly prion disease. He also coined the term “prion” as a contraction of the term “proteinaceous infectious particle.” In fact, the scientific term for prion disease is “transmissible spongiform encephalopathy.” The operative word is “transmissible.”

President Obama awarded Prusiner the National Medal of Science in 2010 to recognize the importance of his research. Unfortunately, much of his research is being ignored. Prion theory is extremely simple. All that we must know is that prions + pathways = victims. Suppression of the truth also adds to the gravity of the equation.

In June 2012, Prusiner confirmed that Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, Huntington’s disease and even ALS are prion diseases. Other prion diseases include Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) in people, mad cow disease in livestock and chronic wasting disease (CWD) in wildlife. The variations in disease progression could be due to genetics in the patients or mutations in the prion, not different diseases entirely.

“This shows beyond a shadow of a doubt that amyloid beta and tau are both prions, and that Alzheimer’s disease is a double-prion disorder in which these two rogue proteins together destroy the brain,” said Stanley Prusiner, MD, the study’s senior author and director of the UCSF Institute for Neurodegenerative Diseases, part of the UCSF Weill Institute for Neurosciences. “The fact that prion levels also appear linked to patient longevity should change how we think about the way forward for developing treatments for the disease. We need a sea change in Alzheimer’s disease research, and that is what this paper does. This paper might catalyze a major change in AD research.”

In 2019, Dr. Stanley Prusiner further confirmed that Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease are forms of prion disease. Prusiner confirmed that alpha-synuclein and tau are forms of prion, a deadly and unstoppable protein that migrates, mutates and multiplies. Autopsies have confirmed that skin samples from patients with prion disease are infectious. In fact, research suggests that skin is even more infectious as the disease progresses. 

In the initial phase of prion research, prions could only be seen in the brain during autopsy. Today, researchers can detect these proteins in spinal fluid, blood and skin. If they admit the truth, they can test saliva, mucus and more. Prions infect the entire body. Risk-free prion exposure is a myth. Prions migrate, mutate and multiply as they move up the food chain.

Unfortunately, family and caregivers are not the only ones who need the truth to protect themselves from prion transmission. In addition to the risks of social interaction, people with prion disease infect the world around them in many ways. A blood donation. An organ donation. Even a sneeze or a cough is a biohazard. Items contaminated by a person with prion disease (cups, utensils, telephones, door knobs, etc.) cannot be sterilized. Once contaminated they are forever contaminated.

The largest prion pathway in the world is sewage, which is being foolishly recycled in many ways. Industry is reclaiming millions of gallons of wastewater for irrigation and drinking water. Farmers, ranchers, golf courses, gardeners and miners are dumping tons of sewage sludge (biosolids) on open land because it is a free form of fertilizer. In fact, most are paid to allow the dumping on their land. Unfortunately, wastewater treatment plants can’t stop infective prions, so sewage sludge is better defined as infectious waste.

This reckless policy has created a public health disaster across North America and we have encouraged nations around the world to spread biosolids far and wide. In addition to prion contamination, wastewater treatment plants can’t stop “forever chemicals.” Sewage sludge/biosolids and reclaimed wastewater are serving as distributors of biohazards. The concept of homeland defense should apply to all threats–foreign and domestic.

The US EPA launched this misguided dumping program with fraudulent risk assessments. After decades of lies, deceit and death, the agency has backed away from the risk assessment that allows for the dumping of this infectious waste. The EPA admits that the original risk assessment was incomplete and failed to analyze several toxins and neurotoxins commonly found in treated sewage. Without a credible risk assessment in place, the dumping of toxic sewage sludge on open land is illegal. It is bioterrorism. Meanwhile, it continues across the US and around the world. Most nations that dump toxic sewage sludge on land have had incidents of mad cow disease in livestock and chronic wasting disease in wildlife.

One of the leading prion researchers in the world, Claudio Soto, PhD, professor of neurology at the University of Texas Medical School in Houston, and his colleagues confirmed the presence of prions in urine. So have others.

“Our findings open the possibility that some neurodegenerative disease cases may arise from an infectious process, which occurs with other neurological diseases such as mad cow disease and its human form, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease,” said Soto. “The underlying mechanism of Alzheimer’s disease is very similar to the prion diseases. It involves a normal protein that becomes misshapen and is able to spread by transforming good proteins to bad ones. The bad proteins accumulate in the brain, forming plaque deposits (and inflammation), which kill neurons.”

Despite these profound findings about prion disease and prion pathways, researchers claim that the detection of infectious prions in skin samples is not a threat to public health. These frauds recommend studying the threat to death. No prion pathway is safe.

“This certainly lends itself to asking new scientific questions,” said James Galvin, director of the Comprehensive Center for Brain Health at the University of Miami Health System.”Proteins involved in brain disease, such as prion protein in Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease and bovine spongiform encephalopathy, are transmissible.”

The Skin Test For Prion Disease

Prions in skin could serve as a useful biomarker for preclinical diagnosis of prion diseases, including Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. The Syn-One test is marketed for Parkinson’s disease, but it will detect the same protein in people with other forms of prion disease. The only difference is which region of the brain is under immediate attack. That is why a clinician must interpret the test results.

Only when a person has the cardinal motor symptoms of Parkinson’s — slowness plus tremor or stiffness — can a diagnosis be made. If the presenting symptom is memory, a doctor could make a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease. If the presenting symptoms are severe on all scales, it’s probably CJD. That’s about as scientific as it gets with neurodegenerative disease.

Meanwhile, Eli Lilly is seeking FDA approval for a blood test for Alzheimer’s disease that will screen blood for these deadly proteins. Again, this development confirms the presence of these proteins in the body and the failure to protect public health from prion pathways.

Unfortunately, there aren’t any screens to prevent a person with prion disease from donating blood to an unsuspecting public. Most neurologists and health care professionals are aware of the prion threat. They are taking precautions to protect themselves and their facilities from prion contamination, but they are not protecting the public. It is criminal.

Prion disease is now the fastest-growing cause of death in the world. The truth is more elusive than a cure. Many factors are contributing to the surge, including misinformation, disinformation and reckless public policies.

The medical term for prion disease is transmissible spongiform encephalopathy, which includes ALS, Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, mad cow disease, chronic wasting disease. The operative word is transmissible. 

Despite the smoke and mirrors, the major difference between all of these forms of neurodegenerative disease is the species under attack by infectious prions or the region of the brain that is under attack.

Livestock, wildlife and humans have been transmitting prion disease back and forth for years. It’s a vicious circle that can’t be stopped. Answers begin with the truth.

Learn how to prevent and treat all forms of prion disease. Unfortunately, there is no cure, but an early diagnosis can generate truth. An early diagnosis can improve treatment and it can help prevent the spread of the disease to family, friends and caregivers.

If you or someone that you know has Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, please take the appropriate precautions to minimize the risk of disease transmission. Please defend yourself and others. Dental and medical equipment cannot be sterilized. Please don’t donate blood if you have neurodegenerative disease. If you need a blood transfusion, proceed with caution. Blood banks don’t screen for prion disease.

Learn more about the skin test for Parkinson’s disease in JAMA.

There are proven strategies to help avert neurodegenerative disease, including nutrition, exercise and prion aversion. There is not a cure for prion disease. Preview and order the eBook now to defend yourself and your family.

The post Prion Disease Detected In Skin appeared first on Neuroscience News.

Neurodegenerative disease as a whole, including ALS, Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease, has been surging higher and higher around the world for the past 50 years. It is the fastest-growing cause of death in many countries.

Contrary to popular belief, the rising surge of neurodegenerative disease has more to do with an unstoppable neurotoxin than age. Neurodegenerative disease will become even more prevalent thanks to migration, mutation, misinformation, disinformation and overall mismanagement.

By 2050, the World Health Organization predicts more than 130 million people will be battling neurodegenerative disease (three times the current estimate). The global surge in neurodegenerative disease in humans and many other mammals could be “Disease X.” Neurodevelopmental disease, including autism, has mirrored the global spread of neurotoxins and neurodegenerative disease.

In the United States, for example, the incidence of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) rose considerably from 2007 to 2020, particularly among older women, according to a research letter published in JAMA Neurology in 2023.

CJD is not a reportable disease, so the real number of deaths behind the surge is probably much higher.

The World Economic Forum (WEF) and The Global CEO Initiative on Alzheimer’s Disease (CEOi) initiated a new partnership called the Davos Alzheimer’s Collaborative. The organization held a discussion at Davos to discuss the need to prioritize brain health globally. The discussion brought together leaders and stakeholders to discuss issiues and opportunities.

The discussion covered a range of topics, including the development of immunotherapies and vaccines. It also examined risk reduction and prevention. When it comes to prion disease, answers begin with the truth

The Truth About Prion Disease

1. Most forms of neurodegenerative disease are related. The biggest difference is which species is under attack. In people, we are defining prion disease based on the region of the brain that is under attack. Don’t be fooled. It is much simpler and more accurate to refer to it all as prion disease.
2. Most forms of neurodegenerative disease are more accurately described as prion disease, which is caused by a deadly and unstoppable form of protein known as a prion. The clinical term for prion disease is transmissible spongiform encephalopathy (TSE). The most important thing to remember about TSE is that this class of brain disease is transmissible between people and other mammals. There are thousands, if not millions, of mutations of prions migrating through our lives now. Prion disease is called different things in different species, but the only difference between mad cow disease and chronic wasting disease and the human forms mentioned here is the species impacted.
3. Diagnosing Alzheimer’s disease, in particular, is not a science. It’s a spectrum disease. It’s a process of elimination and an educated guess. If the symptoms are severe, neurologists might diagnose the person with Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD).
4. If the person is diagnosed with CJD, doctors and medical facilities will take extreme precautions to avoid contact with that person to avoid transmission of the disease (via bodily fluids or skin). In many cases, they will avoid making such a diagnosis because it opens the door to liability regarding prion contamination. Families and caregivers, however, are not warned about the transmissible nature of CJD. Criminal negligence.
5. Unfortunately, Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease are forms of prion disease, which maens that they are infectious. No warnings are issued to caregivers and family. The entire bodies of victims are contagious. A sneeze can be lethal. A contaminated cup or fork is a biohazard that can infect an entire family over years and years (prions migrate and mutate, but don’t stop.
6. Infectious waste is the largest prion pathway in the world. Prions are in the bodily fluids and tissue of millions of victims. Thanks to flawed (fraudulent) risk assessments, we are dumping sewage sludge (biosolids) on crops, forests, golf courses, ballparks, school grounds and gardens. We are recycling wastewater for drinking water, but prions survive the purification process. We are injecting deadly prions into our food and water supplies. We are ignoring prion contamination where we live, work and play. Ending sewage mismanagement is a critical success factor in the war for public health.

Unfortunately, there is not a cure for neurodegenerative disease. It’s important to know that pharmaceuticals keep failing in clinical trials. Researchers are starting to target the prions and protein formations in the brain with antibodies. Purging these neurotoxins from our bodies is part of the equation, but stopping the infectious cycle of prions will be the final frontier of prevention and treatment.

This year, the national cost of caring for individuals living with Alzheimer’s disease or other dementias is projected to reach $345 billion in the U.S. alone. — a $24 billion increase from a year ago. The prion contagion will continue spreading and mutating at a faster pace until we shine the bright lights on the truth. Prion contamination threatens life, as we know it. Disinformation is deliberate, so defend yourself and your family with the truth.

Read More About Prion Disease and The Nobel Prize. The science is being ignored in many critical ways.

The medical term for prion disease is transmissible spongiform encephalopathy, which includes ALS, Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, mad cow disease, chronic wasting disease. The operative word is transmissible.

There are proven strategies to help avert neurodegenerative disease, including nutrition, exercise and prion aversion. There is not a cure for prion disease. Preview and order the eBook now to defend yourself and your family.

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Prions are lethal. They migrate, mutate and kill with unparalleled efficiency. As such prion disease is the fastest-growing cause of death on the planet. It kills most, if not all, mammals.

Unfortunately, prion contamination is spreading around the world via numerous pathways, but scientists and governments are more interested in studying them than containing them. Such questionable priorities recently cost two scientists their lives.

At least two scientists in France contracted a rare and fatal prion brain disease after working in labs that handle prions. As such, France issued a temporary moratorium on all research into prion diseases by public research laboratories for at least three months.

The moratorium was issued after a retired National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and Environment (INRAE) lab worker who handled prions in the lab developed Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD). 

While the origin of the disease is not certain, this retired lab worker could be the second known case of someone catching a prion disease in a lab run by INRAE. In June 2019, Émilie Jaumain died at age 33 after being infected with prions in 2010. Jaumain pricked her thumb during an experiment with prion-infected mice. Unfortunately, she was wearing latex gloves instead of pierce-proof gloves.

In November 2017, she began having burning pain in the right shoulder and neck. The pain worsened and spread to the right half of her body during the following 6 months. The patient died 19 months after the onset of symptoms. Neuropathological examination confirmed the diagnosis of variant CJD.

Her family is suing the INRAE for manslaughter and endangering life. INRAE finally admitted the likely link between her death and the lab accident. Unfortunately, Jaumain likely exposed friends, family and caregivers to the prion pathogen. Such cases highlight the need for improvements in the prevention of transmission of variant CJD and other prions that can affect humans in the laboratory and neurosurgery settings.

Prions (PREE-ons) are a deadly and unstoppable form of protein that migrates, mutates, multiplies and kills with unparalleled efficiency. Prions were first discovered in the late 1980s as a protein-containing biological agent that replicates itself in living cells without nucleic acid.

Prions cause fatal neurodegenerative disease in humans and other mammals by converting the cellular version of prion protein into a toxic form that erodes the brain and body. Prion disease often is described as a wasting disease that causes a loss of body mass and brain mass.

Prion disease is a spectrum disease. It is clinically known as transmissible spongiform encephalopathy (TSE). As the name suggests, TSEs are transmissible. Deadly prions spread through the bodily fluids and tissue of those carrying prion disease (milk, blood, saliva, mucus, urine, feces, tissue and skin). Prions shed from infected humans are highly transmissible to humans and other mammals.

Until recently, few have considered the possibility that Alzheimer’s disease is a transmissible disease. This denial and misinformation has been fueling a public health crisis around the world for years.

Dr. Stanley Prusiner, an American neuroscientist from the University of California at San Francisco, earned a Nobel Prize in 1997 for discovering and characterizing prions and prion disease. President Obama awarded Prusiner the National Medal of Science in 2010 to recognize the importance of his research. Important reforms to policies to protect public health, however, have been elusive. Prusiner’s most recent study confirms that Alzheimer’s disease is a prion disease–also known as transmissible spongiform encephalopathy (TSE). Once again, it demands reform on many levels to protect public health.

Learn more about Dr. Stanley Prusiner and the Nobel Prize for prion science and prion disease.

Prion disease is now the fastest-growing cause of death in the world. The truth is more elusive than a cure. Many factors are contributing to the surge, including misinformation, disinformation and reckless public policies.

The medical term for prion disease is transmissible spongiform encephalopathy, which includes ALS, Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, mad cow disease, chronic wasting disease. The operative word is transmissible. Victims generate a tremendous amount of infectious waste.

Learn how to prevent and treat all forms of prion disease. Learn the truth about the prion pandemic.

There are proven strategies to help avert neurodegenerative disease, including nutrition, exercise and prion aversion. There is not a cure for prion disease. Preview and order the eBook now to defend yourself and your family.

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