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.
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.