http://www.capecodonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20130906/NEWS/309060341

HYANNIS — Five Cape Cod Hospital patients have been told they are at low risk of having been exposed to a rare, fatal brain disease that may have been transferred to them from a surgical instrument.

The case of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease was first identified by the New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services after the instrument was used on a patient who had brain surgery there in May, according to a statement from Cape Cod Hospital.

That patient died in August, and doctors believe he had the deadly degenerative brain disease.

Health officials warn that the proteins that cause the disease may have been present on the instrument, which is shared among a number of hospitals....The instrument went through at least four sterilization procedures before arriving at Cape Cod Hospital from New Hampshire, said Georgia Dash, director of infection prevention for Cape Cod Healthcare. It is very difficult to get rid of every trace of the prions (infectious proteins) that can cause Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease during sterilization, but Cape Cod Hospital performed an extra cleaning procedure upon acquiring the instrument, Dash said. This "double process" makes it very unlikely anyone was exposed, she added.

"Sterilization" does nothing to prions. They are not alive. Any cleaning process has to be able to physically break the proteins apart by either chemical or thermal methods. We're talking a lot of heat, or very strong chemicals.

How much heat would be needed? Boil 'em for an hour? Irradiate?

I wonder what kinds of chemicals would do it?

It is scary--I think if I were a patient I'd want to buy my own equipment, new, if I could afford it!!!

Cats Cradle. Ice-nine was a form of ice that water liked better than regular ice, so any water that touched it immediately became ice-nine. Not good for living things; it's a very creepy yet allegorical story, like a lot of his work.

I don't know exactly how much heat it would take to break one of these things up.

I love DU, I learn something new every day!!!

The memorial is this weekend and I hope to learn more from my family

http://www.medpagetoday.com/Surgery/Neurosurgery/41405

Who knew that hospitals shared stuff like that? I guess the manufacturer "rents 'em out" instead of selling them...?

I've seen reports of other neurosurgical tools that have spread prions around. Scary indeed.

Both scare the hell out of me...


Tikki

again.

hair on my arms is standing up, I kid you not.

ackkkkk!

And squirrel brains.

Chickens and pigs, however, seem not to get prion diseases.

to support your claim that humans can contract a prion-based disease from eating Elk meat. The Cervid version of transmissible spongiform encephalopathy is chronic wasting disease and there is no credible evidence that humans can contract CWD or a CJD varient, from consuming the meat from CWD positive deer and elk.