New Findings With Alzheimer's

“First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, and then you win,” Gandhi said, and it seems that proponents of a controversial theory that Alzheimer’s disease is transmittable have proceeded past the ridicule stage. Scientists are starting to fight them.

Last September, researchers first proposed the possibility that Alzheimer’s could be communicable after performing autopsies on people who had died of Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (CJD). During these autopsies, researchers were surprised to find clear signs of Alzheimer’s, despite the fact that Alzheimer’s is nearly always a late life onset disease.

Additional research into the medical histories of the patients revealed that all had undergone certain types of surgery. There is now more circumstantial evidence linking surgical procedures to Alzheimer’s, including:

• Additional autopsies on young people who died of CJD, also with surgical histories, who also showed signs of Alzheimer’s
• Research showing that the potential method of transmission, amyloid proteins, are not removed through normal hospital sterilization methods
• Amyloid seeding has been linked to the possible transfer of other diseases

Doctors and hospitals have been very negative towards this possibility, insisting that everything necessary is being done to control risk. But if there is any possibility that something as devastating as Alzheimer’s is contagious, medical establishments must commit whatever resources are necessary to prevent it.

In September, hospitals and doctors were still trying to ignore the findings, dismissing them outright. A month later the ridicule came, with claims that everybody knew that Alzheimer’s was not an infectious disease. Now, the fighting has begun in earnest. We can only hope that the right answer will win.

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