DIDN'T CREATE PRIONS
DEAR STRANGER: Christine Wenc's piece on "Cannibal Cows and Dying Deer" in the 21-27 August Stranger is generally well researched, well written, and informative. However, she does give the meat industry too much "credit" for the existence of prions. She says, "I believe prions are a new kind of environmental pollutant created... by industry," and later on, "Our environmental problems may come to include the effects of biological agents not previously known--or, in the case of genetic engineering, not previously in existence." (Emphasis added.)
To be sure, there are many hitherto-unknown environmental and biological hazards created by industry in general, and by the food industry in particular. But the prion is almost certainly not one of them. In fact, naturally occurring prions seem to have been around since at least the early 19th century, causing scrapie in the English sheep population. Moreover, long before the craze for cheap meat became prevalent, there were cases of spontaneously occurring Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) in the population of Europe. Prions have evidently been around for a long time, and are not objects that had to be biologically engineered, either delib- erately or by accident. In that respect, prions are like the Ebola-Zaire virus: something that has existed in nature since time immemorial, but that has been, not created, but rather amplified and granted easier access to the wider world by technology--cattle-breeding technology in the case of prions; modern transportation technology in the case of Ebola.
Furthermore, the work of Carlton Gajdusek among the Fore people of New Guinea indicates that prions occur naturally with no help from the beef industry. The Fore suffered from a transmissible spongiform encephalopathy (TSE) very similar to CJD, called "kuru," which was induced, not by eating Big Macs, but by eating each other, i.e., ritual cannibalism. It is one of the more exquisite ironies of the prion/TSE saga that, whereas TSEs are exacerbated in the West by cattle-cannibalism (as Wenc correctly notes), TSEs are similarly exacerbated in primordial cultures by people-cannibalism.
What causes a healthy PrP protein molecule to spontaneously adopt a pathological "conformation," and then to be able to pass this lethal topology on to other protein molecules, is not clear. Probably environ- mental factors originating in the cheap-meat industry do play a part. But Wenc's view that that industry created the threat is simplistic.
James R. Cowles
YOU FIRST, DONNA
Christine Wenc's "Cannibal Cows and Dying Deer" was a relief. Not the dying deer. What did deer or cows do to deserve us? Ask yourself, "What are humans good for?" Really? They don't fit into the machine that is earth any more than a badly-cut cog. Other than food for diseases, how do they do any good on earth? According to Wenc's article, humans may be good for nothing else than getting rid of humans.
And maybe, soon, they'll be able to get rid of ALL the humans. About time.
Donna Barr
RED-LIGHT DISTRICTS
TO THE EDITOR: As a former Seattleite, I thought you guys might find it interesting that Baltimore's red-light zone (called "the Block") is directly across from police headquarters. Now, if you think this means it is a sanitized environment, guess again. Clubs on the Block are known for having small "VIP" lounges where, for a small fee, you and the dancer of your choice may do whatever. In addition, this is all in the area of the newly gentrified Inner Harbor, less than two blocks from a host of upscale hotels. It is also about three blocks away from the National Aquarium, Planet Hollywood, and ESPN Zone. Weird, eh?
Robert Welch
THE MO' PAPERS, THE MO' BETTER
YO: If the Committee for a Two-Newspaper Town is fighting for the status quo, and that status quo, utilizing Mr. Feit's logic, is to have a pair of local papers fighting to be USA Today, isn't that better than having one local paper fighting to be USA Today? [Five to Four, Aug 21] Hell, we have a pair of local weeklies fighting to be the Village Voice, don't we? Better than one, I'd say. Let's keep the status quo intact. I don't give a hyena's naked butt whether Phil Talmadge knows where Molly Ivins gets her paycheck from; that's not the point.
Wayne Proctor
TIMES GO BACK
DEAR JOSH: Sorry, but I strongly disagree with your position that there is no difference between the two daily newspapers. I subscribed to both papers from 1981 until the Times moved to mornings. I got my news from the P-I. I got my second-day analysis from the Times. Now I subscribe to the P-I. I just don't have the time to read both in the morning. The perfect solution for me as a reader would be if the Times went back to afternoons.
Natalie Fobes
GODDEN'S GOODBYE
Thanks for publishing Jean Godden's farewell column ["Godden's Last," Aug 7]. I, for one, really appreciated it.
J. A. Jance
PEACE OUT
I suggest that you add a "Peace and Justice," or similar category, to your events selections. Thanks for the great info! What an incredible zine you are!
