: I wish the mad cow disease caused by
: insecticide/manganese/nerve poisons theory WAS correct.

: Unfortunately, while very close, it is not the cause, nor does
: it explain the transmission element.

{snip}

: You will see how this disease in its human form was first
: noticed amongst New Guinea highland natives, who indulged
: in cannabalism.

: None of these people, their animals etc were exposed to nerve
: toxins, insecticides or the like. Nor is the vector of

: transmission known to this day.

Er, Duncan, you're making flat-out assertions, here, but it's unclear whether your assertions are founded on more than your own thinking about what seems (to you) "only logical" and what doesn't, leaving me with these questions:

- How conclusively has it been shown that "Mad Cow" and CJD or nvCJD are identical?

If the key vector - whether vector of transmission or essential common trigger - isn't known, that would make it hard to be sure the ailments are the same, even if the preponderance of quantifiable symptoms are the same.

Said differently, "Mad Cow" could easily be caused by manganese-laden orthophosphates while CJD could be caused by something else. Historically "manganese madness" as observed in manganese mine workers is strikingly similar to "mad cow" - making it difficult to know, if the two are different ailments, which one is being observed today in human cases - "nvCJD" could be "mad cow, in humans", while standard CJD could be a different condition (or at least of different origin).

No one seems to be speaking of it today, but CJD was most commonly found in Eastern European Jews, indicating a genetic anomaly, possibly manifesting as a lack of one particular enzyme. Was that enzyme involved in 'conjugating' manganese...?

- Why suppose an ailment first reported among New Guinea highlanders "who indulged in cannibalism" could not include a manganese or other toxic component?

Toxins would concentrate in fat tissues the further one goes up the food chain - which suggests toxins would be most concentrated in human fat tissues being ingested by cannibals.

Additionally, the pro-insecticide researchers are hypothesizing vectors that do relate to higher altitudes, so finding this condition among "highlanders" would be consistent with those hypotheses.

You're saying there was "no exposure" among those highlanders - but this presupposes there was no exposure to plant-derived toxins or to higher-than-normal concentrations of toxic metals in their 'diet'. How well do we know that to be true?

- If the "vector of transmission" is not known to this day, how do we know the condition is transmissible? (Surely scurvy seemed to be transmissible, too, till we found out better.)