The Pathological Protein. Mad Cow, Chronic Wasting, and Other Deadly Prion Diseases
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Author(s): P. Yam
Publisher: Springer
ISBN:  0387955089
Format: hardback
  284pp
Price: £21.00, $27.50, €29.95
Review Date: July 02, 2003
Review: Philip Yam, News Editor of Scientific American, tells the story of how scientists have discovered the agent of disease in nvCJD and other neurological disorders. Yam follows the discoveries from an unusual death in England in 1995, through the diagnosis of CJD, the identification of the resemblance to scrapie in sheep, and the build-up of the prion hypothesis. He examines how modern agricultural methods enabled prions to adapt to a new host and create mad cow disease. There are also chapters on: the estimate of the number of cases that may occur of nvCJD; of how the US can keep it out; on how prion disease can be spread; on the search for a cure; and on whether prion diseases are more prevalent than has been thought.