In truth there’s only ever been one example of Prion disease transmission through cannibalism in humans - Kuru - a disease present in one incredibly tiny population (the Fore) in Paupa New Guinea, once. Incidentally, it was essentially only transmissible if you consumed the brain (or spine) of an infected person, which was the part reserved for young children / pregnant women. Stopping the practice of eating the brain would have effectively eliminated the disease, and conveniently the australian colonial government and local christian missionaries had recently outlawed funerary cannibalism. I’m sure that, by their reputation for extreme tolerance and cultural sensitivity, they would never exaggerate the dangers of cannibalism to back up their claims.
Anyways, no new cases of Kuru have occurred since the Fore stopped practicing funerary cannibalism (voluntarily, once someone stopped just beating them and took the time to explain what was happening) and the disease has essentially been eradicated. So, though it’s probably best not to eat another member of your species without checking to make sure they don’t have parasites (and hypothetically Creutzfeldt–Jakob’s disease. Although there’s never been a case of it being transmitted via cannibalism, that’s simply because it’s vanishingly extreme rarity means it’s likely never had a chance to happen), there’s no particular harm that’s going to happen because of it.
It’s almost like prion disease is rare. If you can get vCJD from eating meat of a cow that had BSE, you can very likely also get it from eating a human that had vCJD. Particularly given that it is proven to be transmissable via blood transfusion. And that cows can get BSE from eating other cows. BSE outbreaks are also pretty much the only instance in which we actually have enough data on cannibalism and the potential of disease spread.
The reason we don’t have many cases is that we don’t eat people and that the diseases that you’re likely to contract from doing so that don’t die from cooking are very rare. Add to that that even cultures that do consume human meat generally only do so to a very limited degree (and often from people that died violently rather than disease or old age), and of course not much has been recorded.
Since prions can occur spontaneously, it is very possible that a culture of frequently consuming human meat indiscriminately could even eventually lead to some new prion disease spreading which happens to transmit via meat consumption at an above average rate.
I think I said most of that already, I’m sorry I’m not quite sure what your point is. The risk of getting a prion disease is already extremely low, and even within that the majority of CJD infections are spontaneous. That’s sure the consensus in the literature, fwiw. An above average transmission rate would therefore be spectacularly unspectacular, given how few new cases would be needed to achieve that.
I agree with you in general but cannibalism is actually bad because prion disease. Not eating other people makes sense for simply health reasons.
I mean I still think if everyone involved consents it should be allowed, but there’s a good reason we don’t like it as a society.
That sure is the conventional wisdom, isn’t it?
In truth there’s only ever been one example of Prion disease transmission through cannibalism in humans - Kuru - a disease present in one incredibly tiny population (the Fore) in Paupa New Guinea, once. Incidentally, it was essentially only transmissible if you consumed the brain (or spine) of an infected person, which was the part reserved for young children / pregnant women. Stopping the practice of eating the brain would have effectively eliminated the disease, and conveniently the australian colonial government and local christian missionaries had recently outlawed funerary cannibalism. I’m sure that, by their reputation for extreme tolerance and cultural sensitivity, they would never exaggerate the dangers of cannibalism to back up their claims.
Anyways, no new cases of Kuru have occurred since the Fore stopped practicing funerary cannibalism (voluntarily, once someone stopped just beating them and took the time to explain what was happening) and the disease has essentially been eradicated. So, though it’s probably best not to eat another member of your species without checking to make sure they don’t have parasites (and hypothetically Creutzfeldt–Jakob’s disease. Although there’s never been a case of it being transmitted via cannibalism, that’s simply because it’s vanishingly extreme rarity means it’s likely never had a chance to happen), there’s no particular harm that’s going to happen because of it.
It’s almost like prion disease is rare. If you can get vCJD from eating meat of a cow that had BSE, you can very likely also get it from eating a human that had vCJD. Particularly given that it is proven to be transmissable via blood transfusion. And that cows can get BSE from eating other cows. BSE outbreaks are also pretty much the only instance in which we actually have enough data on cannibalism and the potential of disease spread.
The reason we don’t have many cases is that we don’t eat people and that the diseases that you’re likely to contract from doing so that don’t die from cooking are very rare. Add to that that even cultures that do consume human meat generally only do so to a very limited degree (and often from people that died violently rather than disease or old age), and of course not much has been recorded.
Since prions can occur spontaneously, it is very possible that a culture of frequently consuming human meat indiscriminately could even eventually lead to some new prion disease spreading which happens to transmit via meat consumption at an above average rate.
I think I said most of that already, I’m sorry I’m not quite sure what your point is. The risk of getting a prion disease is already extremely low, and even within that the majority of CJD infections are spontaneous. That’s sure the consensus in the literature, fwiw. An above average transmission rate would therefore be spectacularly unspectacular, given how few new cases would be needed to achieve that.