This CWD/CJD, as far as they can tell, originated in New Guinea. A research physician went there to visit a Dr friend who was researching the cause and became interested enough to stay there and help for 20-25yrs! They found that, in humans, the issue was all in the brain, which the natives would relish after some warfare with another tribe, which spread the disease widely. After quite an effort, they convinced the natives to NOT eat their foe's brain after a battle so as to not get the disease, which worked. The issue was/is pretty much eradicated in New Guinea and I think remains so. The visiting Dr., Richard Rhodes, penned a fascinating and seemingly not well known book on their efforts and results called "Deadly Feasts", which I have on my shelf. It is one fascinating read. This was long before it became an issue elsewhere; these two guys were real pioneers on this ailment and set the stage for all future research on it. Scientific American also published a long article on the disease that is quite detailed and also an excellent read; I have that on the shelf also. You can actually take an infected brain and incinerate it to ash, then take the ash and feed it to chickens and they will develop the disease. Scary stuff... Someone in Scotland or somewhere buried a bunch of sheep who had scabies(same disease). Someone later went to the mass grave site and dug up earthworms over the top and fed them to chickens or something and they developed the disease.... It's a most interesting subject for anyone wanting to deep dive into it.
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