IT IS a finding that could turn the conventional wisdom of what causes diseases such as BSE and variant Creutzfeld-Jakob disease on its head. Experiments in sheep suggest that abnormal prions – misshapen versions of normal brain proteins – may not be infectious agents, but a consequence of “prion diseases”.
Abnormal prions were thought to trigger disease by getting into the body through food or cuts and setting off a chain reaction that transforms native prions into harmful ones. These multiply and clog up the brain, and can be fatal. Prions eaten in contaminated food were thought to pass undigested through the…
