Dying for a Hamburger : How Modern Meat-Packing Led to an Epidemic of Alzheimer's Disease

by Murray Waldman, Marjorie Lamb

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published

2004 by McClelland & Stewart

binding

Hardcover, 312 pages

isbn

0771087659 (isbn13: 9780771087653)

description

Bubonic plague, Black Death, AIDS… and Alzheimer’s? One in ten people over 65, and nearly half of those over 85, have Alzheimer’s disease. Today, we s...more

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12/03/08

Dan Robert rated it:

Read in January, 2006

recommends it for: anyone who eats hamburgers

Following the link between the rise of Alzheimer’s disease in the 20th century, the connection with BSE, CJD and the development of modern meat processing due to the astronomical rise in beef demand, along with the development pattern of AD, the authors paint a pretty convincing picture. They propose that AD is a prion disease, transmitted along the vector of cattle fed prion-infected meat processed into their feed for added protein.

After I had read Fatal Protein, a more medical lo...more Following the link between the rise of Alzheimer’s disease in the 20th century, the connection with BSE, CJD and the development of modern meat processing due to the astronomical rise in beef demand, along with the development pattern of AD, the authors paint a pretty convincing picture. They propose that AD is a prion disease, transmitted along the vector of cattle fed prion-infected meat processed into their feed for added protein.

After I had read Fatal Protein, a more medical look at the development of Creutzfeld-Jakob disease due to BSE-infected meat, I felt relatively safe. What I had gathered from that book is that there seemed to be a genetic predisposition for the transmission of this very rare disease. And considering the number of cases compared to the number of people who had accessed the same disease source, it was statistically irrelevant, unless of course you were one of the unlucky ones. But with so many dangers and threats to life much more likely to obliterate me from the planet, why worry about the unlikely probabilities.

By linking Alzheimer’s disease into the BSE cycle, Waldman and Lamb have moved the probability uncomfortably closer.
The statistical rise of AD and its meteoric rise in risk as one gets older present a compelling case. Looking at cases of kuru from Papua New Guinea and autopsies revealing the buildup of amyloid plaques killing off brain cells in an almost identical way to some form of CJD combined with the fact of kuru being a very slow-acting virus (20-30 years +)makes one shiver. Combine that with the fact that medical literature often confuses CJD with AD and that there’s no way of being absolutely sure which is which unless an autopsy is performed is not comforting.
Iatrogenic causes, such as hGh and corneal transplants and use of dura mater from infected patients has also been shown to pass on the disease. Traditional disinfection methods of surgical instrument sterilization do not affect the malformed protein transmitted. These items remain infectious even though judged clean by today’s standards.

And there is also no early detection method for prion diseases so far.

This affects everyone, not just those who eat beef, since so many cosmetic, pharmaceutical and household products use slaughterhouse by-products. Leather, plastics, gelatine, etc., are part and parcel of everyone’s life.
How long do these prions “survive”? No data so far.
So the only way to make sure no transmission takes place is to destroy anything that’s been in contact with the prions.

But as all this info was threatening to squeeze my brains out of my ears, a glimmer of hope showed up in some long term studies of a group of nuns. It seems that “idea density” and active use of the brain in such things as reading, writing, playing of musical instruments and the like were found to be strong counteragents to the progression of the disease. This in my case is a very encouraging thing, provided I live long enough to become part of the higher-risk group.

The authors postulate an 80-90% infection rate due to the ageing population and t5he present rate of growth if continued. “Coincidentally” enough, I saw a bit of a TV special talking about the development of nanotechnology in which the first steps have been taken for molecule-sized machines that could deliver the right medicine to affected areas instead of blasted away healthy tissue the way it’s done with radiation and chemo nowadays.

Things to ponder, but not to obsess about.
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