Boston Legal, John Titor & Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease
I was watching the latest episode of Boston Legal last night, after downloading it from one of the various P2P sites. Even though my Mom has been sending me tapes I was a little curious about this episode because I had heard some discussion about the plot and that piqued my interest. Off to download it I went!
One of the cases involved a mayor of a small town passing a law that banned the sale of meat from within city limits. The mayor was being sued by the owner of a beef restaurant under the presumption that it is unfair to single out beef.
The mayor’s reason for banning beef was because of the unknown health risks associated with eating red meat. The basic idea was that we are unable to properly discern whether our cows are infected with Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE), otherwise known as Mad Cow Disease. While the world-wide scientific community does not seem all that worried of an imminent threat this mayor, based on information given to him from researchers he was working with, wanted to protect his constituents from having to contract the horrible human form of the disease, known as Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease.
Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) is a rare, degenerative, invariably fatal brain disorder. Typically, onset of symptoms occurs at about age 60.. There are three major categories of CJD: sporadic CJD, hereditary CJD, and acquired CJD. There is currently no single diagnostic test for CJD. The first concern is to rule out treatable forms of dementia such as encephalitis or chronic meningitis. The only way to confirm a diagnosis of CJD is by brain biopsy or autopsy. In a brain biopsy, a neurosurgeon removes a small piece of tissue from the patient’s brain so that is can be examined by a neurologist. Because a correct diagnosis of CJD does not help the patient, a brain biopsy is discouraged unless it is need to rule out a treatable disorder. While CJD can be transmitted to other people, the risk of this happening is extremely small.
While I found the show extremely compelling, especially the arguments against eating red meat and the scientific evidence mentioned regarding CJD what really caught my attention was how this story reminded me of an old blog entry about John Titor. The story of John Titor has some interesting crossover with this particular episode of Boston Legal in the form of the BSE issue.
John Titor, during his short trip through our time period, had a number of “predictions” about the future. They were not really predictions so much as they were his explanation of history as he knew it; the only way for us to comprehend them is to call them predictions. One of those was the following:
Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (CJD) will be epidemic by 2036 and it is spread by eating the meat of animals infected with related diseases such as BSE (bovine spongiform encephalopathy, better known as Mad Cow Disease). CJD is a horrible and fatal brain-deteriorating disease for which there is no treatment or cure, presently believed to be caused by a prion (an abnormal isoform of a host-encoded protein, with no RNA or DNA). Mr. Titor expressed astonishment that people are so careless about the food they routinely ingest; apparently CJD has a latent period of 10 to 30 years, which means (if Mr. Titor was not a fraud) that many people are probably unwittingly contracting the disease today who will become victims of the CJD epidemic. We’re ignorant meat eaters.
It is interesting how some of the information presented in the most recent Boston Legal episode coincided with this information from John Titor. I am not saying that what Mr. Titor proclaims is fact but it still leaves questions that need be answered. If, in fact, red meat is as bad as it is then would it be worthwhile to cease eating it? Based on the information on CJD, those of us who continue to eat red meat it might be too late. We might already be infected with a disease that has yet to awaken.
How scary would that be?
Where do we go from here? Do we continue to eat red meat? Do we believe that it is as bad as they made it out to be on Boston Legal? Is what John Titor “predicts” really something to be concerned with? The latter being the hardest part of all to firmly believe; after all, who would be dumb enough to actually believe that a time traveler came back to our time and told us a number of things about humankind, one of which being that BSE and CJD devestates the population?
Primary interest and concern surrounds Mr. Titor’s prediction of a global nuclear war in 2015 that will destroy most of the major cities in the United States and many around the world, kill a large fraction of the world’s population, and leave the environment contaminated with massive amounts of long-lived radionuclides. By 2036 when civilization has begun to regroup, we of today will be known as the generation that had it all, but threw it away.
Maybe it does not matter as, according to this particular prediction, a global nuclear war in 2015 will take care of a large portion of the population. Does worrying about BSE and CJD really become an issue at this point?
In any event, will you continue to do what most will end up doing? Eating thick, juicy and savory beef steaks? Or will you stop now based on a fear for what may be coming, regardless if that is a rationale fear or not.
I do not know what I will do but I must say that I find these coincidences quite intriguing!
What would be most astonishing is if a sudden scientific discovery is made and it turns out that BSE is far more widespread than our Texan-run government would have us believe, therefore effectively having a population that is awaiting brutal death upon CJD waking out of nowhere.
I remember that journal, and remember reading about him…thought it was so interesting. Nostradamus made similar predictions.
It should be taken seriously, not to be alarming…just precautionary. CJK has been around for decades, but is a rare disorder, and is more widespread than we are led to believe, and recent outbreaks of it have occured in England…about two-three years ago, most of the cows in England were slaughtered, and tourists were not even permitted to travel in areas where there might have been cows, for fear of the disease affecting them…even through breathing the virus in. It has also been found in Canada, and in some cows here, in the U.S. (a rancher had to have all of his cows killed about one year ago, here in the midwest), and just recently within the past 2-3 months.
I first learned about this disease through an organization I get newsletters from, monthly, about ten years ago. It is part of the Leukodystrophy family…rare neurological disorders. It is a white matter disorder. I subscribe to the newsletter because my father’s rare neurological disorder is part of the leukodystrophy family, but is not CJ…but all of the leukodystrophy disorders have similar elements within the white matter of the brain.
I don’t eat beef, any more…mainly chicken and fish…or even veggie burgers….and lots of vegetables. I haven’t eaten beef in several years…more for cholesterol reasons, though.
Cow,pig and chicken will continued to bo consumed for a long time. At least untill 2084. Wher can you raise chickens without proper housing. Small cages, they will be bigger on the inside. You dont have to worry about food. the U.S. will take care of its people.”War ”and ”Fear” will be the driving force for the americans,canadians, mexians, and all of europe.The war will be faught on bloody soil. Many will die. But on a 16 vote count a ”nolo contendere”(no contest) will decide the crimes of war.The crimes of the middle east will be put to justice under a democratic law. The courts will kill 42. People who kill will be killed under law. The world and a republic law will remain.
I hope you dont have a heart attack. If your not gunna save yourself takin the vegan road u need to eat what u can get. Savor it, it might be the last time you tast that colorful dance on your tongue!Â
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what the hell!
fuck u rik ur wrong!!!!!!!!!!!!
Its 2059 Im back for some viagra. Being a Vegan makes you impotent. And the radiation doesnt help much.
The real John Titor wouldn’t post here…
Don’t fall for the obvious frauds or even the questionable characters. Obvious frauds are the peddlers of the book supposedly by Titor’s mother, which if you paid attention while reading about Titor you would understand she would never do such a stupid thing as place herself and her family in jeopardy that way because the secret police would be able to track them down easily.
Less obvious are the dissemblers who have hidden agendas and want you to not believe in Titor’s story. Face it, it is a very threatening story to certain right-wingers who want to bring Fascism to America — which is already happening in spades.
Unfortunate are the sites about Titor that omit references to the original source material, edit and rearrange Titor’s words, and take them out of context. It is also unfortunate that some of the original Titor posts have disappeared and all that are left are second-hand copies. The only sites you can trust to keep Titor’s words uncorrupted are anomalies.net and johntitor.strategicbrains.com. All the others have corrupted the original text, taken it out of context, or accepted frauds as real, and you can’t trust them.