NR ALFR
AU Suarez Fernandez,G.
TI [The truth and present uncertainty about mad cow disease]
OT Verdad e incertidumbre actual en torno al mal de las vacas locas
QU Anales de La Real Academia Nacional de Medicina 2001; 118(1): 189-206; discussion 206-15
PT historical article; journal article; review; review, tutorial
AB A historical review is made about Spongiform Encephalopathies which affect both animals and man. This is the base for an epidemiological and predictive analysis of these type of diseases, especially Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) as a present health problem. The scientific certainties or truths, such as the prion theory (PrPc-PrPsc), the low natural infectivity of these group of diseases, the high dose of prions necessary to produce the experimental disease, the species barrier or specificity, the individual susceptibility due to genetic traits, and the low transmission efficiency by the oral route, compared to the parenteral route, agree with the epidemiological observations of human cases of the variant of the Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD), which is 0.1 cases per million inhabitants and year. The present and future prediction of BSE should not be alarmist, taking into account the certainties that we know.
ZR 32
MH Animal; Animal Feed/adverse effects; Blood Transfusion/adverse effects; Cattle; *Encephalopathy, Bovine; Spongiform/diagnosis/epidemiology/etiology/prevention & control; English Abstract; Female; Food Contamination; History of Medicine, 20th Cent.; Human; Maternal-Fetal Exchange; Pregnancy; Prion Diseases/classification/epidemiology/etiology/history/veterinary; Prions/chemistry/isolation & purification/pathogenicity; Protein Conformation; Risk Assessment; Species Specificity
SP spanisch
PO Spanien