In case you are wondering about the "World's Magazine" significance of this review and the subject book, look no farther then the more commonly known "mad cow disease" which recently brought Great Britain's beef and sheep industries to their knees; BSE, or bovine spongiform enchepholphacy is the cattle equivalent of "kuru".

Ed Cantarella

Cruelly, the cerebrum (frontal, main portion of brain) remains intact, so there is little loss of sanity in victims. Different species show different manifestations in the pre-morbid stage: involuntary laughing in humans, insatiable scraping in sheep - "scrapie" disease. Regardless of species, the physical remains all bear the same trademark signs: microscopic holes throughout the cerebellum (base) of the brain. Full of holes like a sponge - spongiform enchepholphacy.

Science drops into the center of the neo-Stone Age culture of the South Fore, in the form of American pediatrician and virologist , Dr. D. Carleton Gajdusek (Guy-dew-sheck). Gajdusek had stopped by New Guinea in 1957, after a research project in Australia, to spend a few months studying child growth in primitive cultures; he ended up committing more then 40 years to the mysterious disease he was made aware of on his second day in New Guinea.

The description of Gajdusek, "... he looked like a hippie, though shorn of beard and long hair, who had rebelled and run off to the Stone Age world....even standing still, he seemed to be on the move," and his estimated I.Q. of 180, conjure up all the best-loved stereotypes of "absent-minded professors" and "genius researchers". Gajdusek later was the recipient of a Noble Prize in Medicine, but the part of his work, or rather his long-held theory of the physical operation of these mysterious, fatal diseases, is what really leaves an "Oh-God" pit in your stomach at the end of this book and could be his real legacy.

The book smoothly works through the entire chronology of the various diseases that were, eventually, shown to be variations of spongiform enchepholphacy. It adds them to the stockpile of what little is known, a chapter at a time - one disease per chapter. It also chronicles the various bureaucratic approaches that were, and are still, being taken in the industrialized nations.

What we find among these nations is mainly

• public denial,
• the claim that infected herds of animals are being destroyed and
• the claim that people are not at risk for infection.

But both the United States and Great Britain have been studying these illnesses since the early 1960s and have spent hundreds of millions on research and billions on abatement (livestock destruction) programs.

And there is no risk? Right.
The agent that spreads these scary illnesses were coined "prions," in 1981, by Dr. Stanley Prusiner. The "prion" theory holds that the agent is a "protein-only" organism, lacking the nucleic acid which is found in every cell of every living thing known to man.

Deadly Feasts goes into some of the animosity other researchers felt toward Dr.Prusiner. The man complaint against him was that Prusiner had used the work of others just to promote his own work- that and that he seemed to work the book and lecture circuits too vigorously.

A competing theory points to virinos (mini viruses), that are using particularly tough protein "shells" to contain their small amount of nucleic acid. The virino camp believes that nucleic acid is the only compound that could hold all of the information that is needed to form the various strains of spongiform enchepholphacy. (Follow this link to find two scientists ranting for their pet theories. )

The scare scenarios of Deadly Feasts come down to two crucial areas, the more urgent being the physical passing of the prions. The spread of the disease is obviously being conducted through meat, hence the recent boycotts against British beef and against sheep produced in many countries.

What many scientists worry about is the spread through animal transplants, surgical sutures, seemingly innocent items such as latex gloves (latex is a byproduct of animal "processing") and common organic bone meal used by gardeners. The bone meal connection is so great that it's use and sale is now banned throughout Great Britain.

Gajdusek's Even Scarier Theory

Usually this involves heating the liquid, so that the crystalline compound can be dissolved into the hot liquid. If all the crystals are dissolved before the liquid starts to cool, crystallization won't occur. However, adding a single crystal of the compound that was "precipitated" into the liquid, instantly sets off a chain reaction of crystals which adopt the pattern of the added crystal.

Gajdusek's theory is that the "prions" are mis-folded or malformed proteins that, through contact, teach the a particular brain protein (PnP), mainly found in the cerebellum, to become similarly malformed. Heady stuff.

Gajdusek's theory is oftencompared to the plot of Kurt Vonnegut's book, "Cat's Cradle", in which a form of ice, "ice-nine", causes all of the water on earth to adopt it's crystalline structure which forms at anything less than 130 degrees Fahrenheit. Freezing the earth solid.

What the scientists know and generally agree upon regarding "prion: diseases:

1. The modern practices of feeding livestock the "processed" waste from slaughterhouses has the ability to transmit this disease agent on a large scale, much like the Fore practice of cannibalism led to a rapid spread of the disease, particularly among the young children and women who were recipients of the burial feasts.
2. Cooking at anything less than 700 degree Fahrenheit has no affect on the ability of the disease agent to remain infectious.
3. The feeding or other direct blood contact with contaminated material can pass the disease agent between different species of animals.
4. That there is no pre-morbid test for spongiform encephocies; young stock from infected herds of animals can often become part of previously uninfected herds.
5. Scientists have no real understanding of the nature of the organism causing the disease, other than it is not a virus, or a bacteria, nor does it even seem to be a living entity as we currently understand them. Contrast this with the devastating, mutating AIDS virus: AIDS is easily identified for study, largly understood, just not easily attacked or cured.
6. Certain groups of animals seems to have a genetically transferred resistance to the prion illnesses.(Leicester University Site -discussion of the genetic variability of prion infections.)
7. The "prion" illnesses will change the nature of biology as it is taught, as the mysteries reveal themselves.

By the way: If you think that being a vegetarian would be a sure way to sidestep this problem, think again: with the exception of Great Britain, bone meal and blood meal are two of the two most popular "organic" fertilizers. Many "organic" vegetables are grown on land that sheep and/or cattle recently grazed. Sometimes meat bites back