Alzheimer’s Passed From Corpses to Humans Through Extracted Hormones Contaminated With Toxic Proteins

A groundbreaking study published in Nature magazine has revealed evidence of Alzheimer’s disease in living people apparently acquired from deceased donors due to transmission of toxic proteins, known as prions, from a now-banned hormone treatment given to them as children. Five cases of Alzheimer’s have been identified, which are believed to have arisen from medical treatment of children of short stature involving donor hormones harvested from cadavers—sometimes without the donor family’s knowledge or consent—decades earlier. According to researchers at University College London (UCL) and its affiliated hospital, the findings may have important implications for understanding and treating Alzheimer’s—a neurodegenerative disease that usually starts slowly and progressively worsens and is the cause of 60—70 percent of cases of dementia....