Caregivers, Family Members, Others In Harm’s Way
Neurodegenerative disease is the fastest-growing cause of death around the world. It will soon be the leading cause of death. Scientists have finally confirmed that Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of neurodegenerative disease are forms of prion disease, which means that they are highly infectious. Caregivers, family members and billions of innocent people are caught in the crossfire of this explosive epidemic. It’s even killing wildlife. Victims are prion incubators and prion distributors. Prions kill with unparalleled efficiency. The epidemic has been building for decades. So has the denial.
Alzheimer’s disease alone is taking the lives of 50-100 million people around the world now. Millions will die of the disease this year, while even more will be diagnosed, misdiagnosed and undiagnosed. The epidemic is more severe in some countries than others. Sick mammals are serving as proverbial canaries in a coalmine, but we are ignoring the bodies of evidence—millions of infectious bodies.
Prion disease often is described as a wasting disease that causes a loss of body mass and brain mass. Alzheimer’s disease alone is taking the lives of 50-100 million people around the world now. Millions will die of the disease this year, while many millions more will be diagnosed, misdiagnosed and undiagnosed. The epidemic is more severe in some countries than others.
Despite millions of deaths annually, experts suggest that the prevalence of Alzheimer’s disease will quadruple by 2050, if not sooner. Unfortunately, there is a growing stack of evidence that Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease and other brain diseases are transmissible. Deadly, self-replicating proteins appear to be one of the common threads. Abnormal proteins appear to be related to the global autism epidemic.
The prion epidemic is worse in some regions of the world than others.
Prions (PREE-ons) are a deadly and unstoppable form of protein that migrates, mutates, multiplies and kills. Prions cause fatal neurodegenerative disease in humans and other mammals by converting the cellular version of prion protein into a toxic form of prion that erodes the brain and body. It’s comparable to the way cancer cells develop and spread, except that deadly prions are indestructible pathogens.
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.
According to Prusiner, Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease are both forms of prion disease. Millions of these victims are walking and talking time bombs. They transmit prions everywhere they go and everywhere that their bodily fluids go. Recycling the modern sewage stream back into our food and water supplies is blowing up in our faces.
“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.
Prusiner’s most recent study confirms that Alzheimer’s disease is a prion disease, which means that millions of people with Alzheimer’s disease (and millions who died ahead of them) are highly infectious. They permanently contaminate the world around them with deadly prions.
Prion disease also is known as transmissible spongiform encephalopathy (TSE). The operative word is “transmissible.” The unfortunate word is “unstoppable.”
Victims become prion incubators and distributors. So do wastewater treatment plants. Despite all of the smoke and mirrors, prion disease is prion disease. It’s killing more and more mammals, including humans, every year. The misinformation and mismanagement are extreme.
Thanks to reckless policies hacked together by the U.S. EPA, we are dumping tons of infectious waste (sewage sludge and biosolids) from people with prion disease on open ground, including farms, ranches, golf courses, parks, school grounds and sports fields. Wastewater treatment companies are even dumping this toxic waste in our forests and on public lands. It’s contaminating food, water and air. It’s killing wildlife. In other mammals, it’s called different things, but prion disease has been found in camels, dolphins, elephants, mink, cats and many other species. Deer, elk, moose and other mammals are actually getting prion disease from humans when we dump sewage sludge and biosolids on open ground. When we reclaim wastewater, we are spreading prion disease to man and beast. It’s insane to think that there is a species barrier to prion disease.
As such, the epidemic that is striking humans and wildlife are connected. Livestock aren’t immune from prion exposure, but industry and government have led us to believe that testing for mad cow disease (prion disease) isn’t necessary. Such a stance further underscores the negligence and incompetence of those who produce and regulate our food supplies.
Regardless of the species impacted, prion disease causes memory loss, impaired coordination, abnormal movements and overall wasting of the mind and body. Victims should be quarantined because prions are in the 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.
Alzheimer’s disease is currently defined based on the presence of toxic protein aggregations in the brain known as amyloid plaques and tau tangles, accompanied by cognitive decline and dementia.
But attempts to treat the disease by clearing out these proteins have been unsuccessful. The new evidence that active Aß and tau prions could be driving the disease – published May 1, 2019 in Science Translational Medicine — could lead researchers to explore new therapies that focus on prions directly. Hopefully, it will lead to many reforms to safeguard public health.
“I believe 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.
Unfortunately, the CDC quietly took prions off the highly regulated list of select agents because the regulation criminalized entire industries and several reckless practices. It also opened the floodgates to prion mismanagement.
Wastewater treatment plants are collecting points for prions from infected humans (skin, urine, feces, blood and bodily tissue). The sewage treatment process can’t stop prions from migrating, mutating and multiplying before being discharged into the environment where they can kill again. Wastewater treatment plants are spreading infectious waste far and wide because they are incapable of stopping prions. As such, all by-products and discharges from wastewater treatment plants are infectious waste, which are contributing to the global epidemic of neurodegenerative disease among humans, wildlife and livestock.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has confirmed that prions are in sewage and that there has been no way to detect them or stop them. As such, the EPA has never issued guidance on prion management within wastewater treatment plants. Unfortunately, the EPA’s risk assessment on sewage sludge (biosolids) was prepared before the world of science knew about prions. The agency continues to cling to its antiquated sludge rule crafted back in the dark ages. It does, however, consider prions a “emerging contaminant of concern.” Meanwhile, its outdated risk assessments are promoting a public health disaster. The neurotoxins found in sewage, including heavy metals, also are contributing to the global spike in autism, which follows the same timing and trajectory as the spike in neurodegenerative diseases.
“Since it’s unlikely that the sewage treatment process can effectively stop prions, adopting measures to prevent the entry of prions into the sewer system is advisable,” said the Toronto Department of Health, November 2004.
Once unleashed on the environment, prions remain infectious. They migrate, mutate and multiply as they infect crops, water supplies, wildlife, livestock, sea mammals and humans. According to prion researcher Joel Pedersen at the University of Wisconsin, prions in soil become up to 680 times more infectious. From there, they migrate, mutate and multiply. It’s a real world version of Pandora’s Lunchbox.
“Since it’s unlikely that the sewage treatment process can effectively stop prions, adopting measures to prevent the entry of prions into the sewer system is advisable,” said the Toronto Department of Health, November 2004.
Once unleashed on the environment, prions remain infectious. They migrate, mutate and multiply as they infect crops, water supplies, wildlife, livestock, sea mammals and humans. According to prion researcher Joel Pedersen at the University of Wisconsin, prions in soil become up to 680 times more infectious. From there, they migrate, mutate and multiply. It’s a real world version of Pandora’s Lunchbox.
“Our results suggest that if prions enter municipal wastewater treatment systems, most of the agent would bond to sewage sludge, survive anaerobic digestion, and be present in treated biosolids,” Pedersen said. “Land application of biosolids containing prions represents a route for their unintentional introduction into the environment. Our results emphasize the importance of keeping prions out of municipal wastewater treatment systems.”
Pedersen also found that sewage treatment does not inactivate prions. Therefore, prions are lethal, mutating, migrating and multiplying everywhere sewage (biosolids) is dumped.
Prions could end up in sewage treatment plants via slaughterhouses, hospitals, dental offices and mortuaries just to name a few of the pathways. The disposal of sludge represents the greatest risk of spreading prion contamination in the environment. Plus, we know that pathogens, pharmaceutical residue and chemical pollutants found in sewage sludge are taken up by plants and vegetables.”
Unfortunately, prions linger in the environment, homes, hospitals, nursing homes, dental offices and beyond infinitely. Prions defy all attempts at sterilization and inactivation.
The risk assessments prepared by the U.S. EPA for wastewater treatment and sewage sludge are flawed and current practices of recycling this infectious waste are fueling a public health disaster. Many risks are not addressed, including prions. They don’t mention prions or radiation because there is no answer. Most nations are making the same mistake. We’re dumping killer proteins on crops, parks, golf courses, gardens, ski areas, school grounds and beyond. Wind, rain and irrigation spread these contaminants and many more throughout our communities and watersheds. It’s fuel
Crops for humans and livestock grown in sewage sludge absorb prions and other neurotoxins. They become infectious. We’re all vulnerable to neurotoxins right now due to widespread denial and mismanagement.
It’s time to rethink Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, autism, chronic wasting disease and mad cow disease. Answers begin with the truth. Prion pathways are all around us, including restaurants, dental offices, hospitals, most public places and even our homes. Even the potting soil that you use in your home and garden likely contains infectious human sewage. If so, your vegetables and other items are infectious. Prions + Pathways = Victims.
For starters, it’s time to stop the land application of sewage sludge and biosolids in all nations. Safer alternatives exist. It’s time for reform on many levels to contain the prion epidemic.
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