Medicine and Health Sciences Commons^™

Sacred Disease Of Our Times: Failure Of The Infectious Disease Model Of Spongiform Encephalopathy, Vivian Mcalister

Vivian C. McAlister

BACKGROUND: Public health and agricultural policy attempts to keep bovine spongiform encephalopathy out of North America using infectious disease containment policies. Inconsistencies of the infectious disease model as it applies to the spongiform encephalopathies may result in failure of these policies.

METHODS: Review of historical, political and scientific literature to determine the appropriate disease model of spongiform encephalopathy.

PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Spongiform encephalopathy has always occurred sporadically in man and other animals. Hippocrates may have described it in goats and cattle. Transmission of spongiform encephalopathy between individuals is too uncommon for it to be usefully considered an infection. Spongiform encephalopathy is …

Training Examiners For A National Epidemiological Survey Of Oral Mucosal Lesions, Rosnah Binti Zain, Razak I. A., Ikeda N., Axéll T., Downer M. C.

Prof. Dr. Rosnah Binti Zain

Ensuring the validity and reliability of data collected in epidemiological surveys is an important consideration. The purpose of the present report is to describe a training and calibration programme for 16 examiners taking part in a national survey of oral mucosal lesions and to present an evaluation of the results. The programme included the distribution of a pictorial manual to participants and a series of lectures followed by three diagnostic sessions, two using slides and the last involving patients. At the final session, the trainees classified 88 per cent of 16 patients correctly in comparison with the definitive diagnoses of …