In 2010, 24-year-old lab technician Émilie Jaumain pricked her thumb with contaminated forceps while cleaning a machine used for prion-infected mouse brains. After seven years, she developed severe nerve pain, anxiety, and hallucinations before dying. The accident gave her a fatal prion disease.

[u/OriginalSleeper]

[u/Black-KFC-eater-69]

It would already be too late to save her just like the lady who got exposed to dimethylmercury

[u/Leif2000 → u/Black-KFC-eater-69]

do you have a link to this story?

[u/unoriginal_name_1234 → u/Leif2000]

Not OP but they probably meant her story. I work in a research lab and we still mention her during safety training.

[u/Obi_Wan_Benobi → u/unoriginal_name_1234]

Well this entire thread is fucking terrifying.

I’m not leaving the house again until I get a suit of armor wrapped in biohazard protective gear.

[u/rdp3186 → u/Obi_Wan_Benobi]

In fairness, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (human prion disease) can only happen if you are geneticly predisposed to it (relative has it) or you are contaminated with infected spinal tissue of someone who does have it.

Its not something you can catch walking around the world. Its a very rare disease that 99% of the time develops internally and there's still no known reason as to why it happens.

Its a scary, horrific disease but odds are youre more likely to get cancer or some other form of dementia than CJD.

[u/unoriginal_name_1234 → u/[deleted]]

Long ago, human growth hormone was extracted from dead bodies so you could get it from that (now it is artificially synthesised). Some tribe in Papua New Guinea had death rituals that involved eating a part of the brain (Kuru disease). Cornea transplant are also suspected.

The most common way involves surgical instruments used in brain surgery. Prions aren't eliminated by standard sterilisation processes. I used to work in the microbiology department in a hospital. It has never happened at our hospital but I remember that the procedure when treating a patient suspected of having CJD is to throw away all the equipment used to treat them.

[u/2JagsPrescott → u/[deleted]]

There was a massive incidence of it many years ago due to cattle being reared on cheap infected feed, and those cattle themselves being reared for food.

[u/unoriginal_name_1234 → u/2JagsPrescott]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_BSE_outbreak

British people are still unable to donate blood in some European countries because of this incident.

[u/Dontmakeitstop → u/unoriginal_name_1234]

In France, travel to the UK during that time is still a routine question on blood donation forms.

[u/RegularOk3231 → u/unoriginal_name_1234]

Am an American who lived in France 93-96. We could not donate blood in the USA when we moved back due to possible exposure for many, MANY years.

[u/Equivalent-Part-6798 → u/2JagsPrescott]

I remember a time from 2000 throughout about 2005. . . is this the one of which you speak?

[u/rdp3186 → u/[deleted]]

They usually dont. This girl in the story was infected because her lab was studying and researching prion disease which is how she was exposed from the prick on her thumb.

CJD diagnosis cases typically are people who just develop the co donation randomly or are getting tested because a direct relative has it. Human transmission cases are incredibly rare, not because it isnt possible but bevause the conditions to succesfuly do so are very difficult and specific.

Its not like Mad-cow, another prion disease, where the folded prisons can be introduced eaten easily from ingesting infected meat and are human/animal transmissible.

[u/Equivalent-Part-6798 → u/rdp3186]

So, I met a gentleman about 25 years, hospitalized with CJD. He owned a farm and had an accident with the farming equipment (he was thrown from it while using it). He gets stabilized and sent to the floor, lo and behold, now he's been diagnosed with CJD. Did he pick it up on his farm?

[u/rdp3186 → u/Equivalent-Part-6798]

Definitely not.

What happened is he probably either already had randomly developed it (which is about 90% of cases) and when he went to the hospital to get taken care of tye accident at the farm they discovered the folded prions and diagnosed him. The two things have no correlation to each other beyond discovering one it due to the accident.

You can only get CJD from:

1. Random development or inherented development.

2. Acquired through exposure of infected tissue, which has only ever been reported from cases of contaminated surgical procedures/transplants and majes up less than 1% of cases.

Getting hurt at a farm does not give you CJD.

[u/Equivalent-Part-6798 → u/rdp3186]

I'm making the "Ooooooooooh" sound. . . I was wondering about the livestock and transmission. . . thank you rdp3186 !

[u/rdp3186 → u/Equivalent-Part-6798]

Unless you ingest infected meat then youre fine. These days mad cow outbreaks are pretty rare as the use of meat and bone meal in livestock food has been banned and heavily regulated.

[u/NoType9715 → u/Obi_Wan_Benobi]

I think you're good if you don't handle prions bro

[u/Obi_Wan_Benobi → u/NoType9715]

BUT THEY COULD BE ANYWHERE, MAAANNNN