VIRUSES, not prions, may be at the root of diseases such as scrapie, BSE and vCJD.
The widely accepted theory of what causes these so-called “transmissible spongiform encephalopathies” (TSEs), such as mad cow disease, is that deformed proteins called prions corrupt other brain proteins, eventually clogging and destroying brain cells. But this theory has never been proved completely.
Laura Manuelidis of Yale University has insisted for years that virus-like particles observed in TSE-infected brains may be the culprits, but since such brains are degenerating, the particles have been dismissed as general debris.
However, when Manuelidis studied the particles in cultures…
