Query

I better publish a blog as I seem to have people visiting.

Here is my current thought, too long for Twitter.  I read over, as best a non-scientist could, a formal study of crows eating flesh containing prions and, then, spreading it. I never internalized crows eat meat.  I just won't trust crows, anymore.  I used to have  seagulls as my spirit guide, but after watching them, I realized they caught fish, flew high, then dropped them on the ground. Then, they would  descend and eat the eyes of the stunned and dying fish.

Perhaps, that is a good spirit lesson. Perhaps, that is how we should live.

PLOA ONE has a report:

Prion Remains Infectious after Passage through Digestive System of American Crows (Corvus brachyrhynchos)

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• Abstract
• Introduction
• Materials and Methods
• Results
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Kurt C. VerCauteren^*, John L. Pilon^¤a, Paul B. Nash^¤b,Gregory E. Phillips, Justin W. Fischer

United States Department of Agriculture, Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, Wildlife Services, National Wildlife Research Center, Fort Collins, Colorado, United States of America

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My concern is the use of the word "infectious."  My concern is the preservation of logic and language in the face of common use and understanding. Of course, I know exactly what the doctors mean, but communication, right here, is not my concern.

My argument may seem too finicky, but in my vigorous maturity, I do not think so. Let me take you through my concern.  

Here is a good medical definition of infection:

infection  (n-fkshn)The invasion of the body of a human or an animal by a pathogen such as a bacterium, fungus, or virus. Infections can be localized, as in pharyngitis, or widespread as in sepsis, and are often accompanied by fever and an increased number of white blood cells. Individuals with immunodeficiency syndromes are predisposed to certain infections. See also infectious diseaseopportunistic infection

Then,

path·o·gen (pth-jn) n. An agent that causes disease, especially a living microorganism such as a bacterium, virus, or fungus.

The American Heritage® Medical Dictionary Copyright © 2007, 2004 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.

As with all definition cascades, you eventually wind up with a blurry area that no one  notices for the sake of communication, which requires the illusion of precision

Here we wonder what an "agent" is, in the face of a dealing with prijons. They could be in the sense that they cause an effect, but, now, is that effect is called a "disease." Probably, I guess one cold say that, but here is the problem. The failure to methodically define and use terms creates a subtle change in languange, making communication difficult the more years that pass. Put aside the successful communication of the title and think about how language needs to be defended.

A prion is not alive, so it is not a "pathogen" or, is it, now? Either way, a prion should not be "infecting," unless we enlarge the meaning of infect. If we do that, we better announce it; better, we should create a new concept. 

prion[prī′on]one of several kinds of proteinaceous particles believed to be responsible for transmissible neurodegenerative diseases, including scrapie in sheep and kuru and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in humans. Because prions lack detectable nucleic acid, they are not inactivated by the usual procedures for destroying viruses. They also do not trigger an immune response.
Mosby's Medical Dictionary, 8th edition. © 2009, Elsevier.

If we change the meaning of infect to include the reprogramming by the prion of live cells, that is not, to me, an instance of a growing language. It is making the language sloppy. People, including scientists, will think of a prion as something akin to a bacteria or virus, but that is a tremendously incorrect view. It is not alive; hence, it cannot be killed.  There is no vaccine against an inert particle.  The common person has to understand this, but will not if scientists are blase about the meaning of words.

Even if a prion is properly a pathogen, some distinction must be made at the level of scientists. Otherwise, what happens, next, is high school teachers become self-proclamed gods and announce incorrect definitions that, over time, wind up in politicians' heads. These turds will use any pretext to use science to justify massive projects to fund. 

Look at "global cooling" in 1976, that changed to "warming" in the period of no warming, and is, now, "climate change."  This morphing is accepted by many and is supposed overcome objections to technical matters, bad math, lying, etc. The political types figure who can argue with "climate change," a malleable tool with no meaning to attack.

An appreciation of what a climate means makes the whole concept even less defensible. Few understand the magnitude of the word "climate." Climate is not the past four years in North America or 100 years anywhoere. Climate change is not the recent growth of ice in Antarctica. It is not a warm summer in New York City. Climate includes weather which is the changeable item." Of course, no one can say how weather changes; I should not say no one, we do have the U.N. The conversations are either gibberish or, if in-house and without discernment, commonly appreciated error. 

It seems a harmless to say prion are infectious, but that is dangerously misleading.  It sounds OK and we know what it means, but the lack of precisions at the base of knowledge leads to Babel. 

I do not see how proper work can be accomplished in a mass of imprecise assumptions.