Marek's disease and humans

[Akrnaf2]

The 2001 study found MDV in human serum but with no correlation to age, gender, or exposure to chickens. I suspect it’s just like every other herpes virus: it could lie dormant and do nothing in a body, but if it is in the correct host it can “flare up.”
The 2003 study found no traces of MDV in human plasma.

A virus can enter to a lysogenic cycle only in its specifics host. If another organism ,(that is not usualy infected by the virus) has bee exposed to the virus, it will respond in an immune response but will not get sick.

 

[staceyj]

I'm trying to follow the scientific terminology of these papers and where they are leading and this very interesting discussion.
I'm struggling to understand the relevance of it being found in sera but not plasma. From my short bit of research to educate myself, sera is just plasma minus the clotting agents.....correct me if I got that wrong guys, but if I am right, what difference does it make? It seems there is still MDV in human blood. The really interesting thing would be how it got there if exposure to chickens makes no difference.... ie office workers are just as likely to have it as chicken farmers and what is the mode of "infection" if that is the correct term when it is not actually an active "infection". Will it be the same as chickens in that it is inhaled in dander dust, in which case it seems odd that the incidence in farmers is not higher? Could it be ingested..... find that pretty hard to imagine but most people eat chicken and eggs of course, even though Marek's is not passed through eggs to chicks.... would be interesting to check life long vegans!

I do feel a little under qualified to take part in this discussion, so please correct me if I say something stupid.

As someone with Marek's disease in their flock it is somewhat comforting to find it's incidence in people handling chickens is no higher than office workers.

Someone mentioned that there is only a 1% chance of it crossing to humans..... considering how devastating the virus is, that 1% seems awfully high to me..... like much higher than winning the lottery. Am I misunderstanding that?

Good points @rebrascora I’m in your camp of being very interested although I’m lacking the advanced scientific education to make comments here. I too was wondering about ingestion of meat or eggs!
... and the status of vegans, however I feel that even a “lifelong” vegan stands a 0% chance of never having been exposed to some type of food “contaminated” by a meat protein or fat.

 

[Kiki]

You're ruining my life Kiki! You know my insurance will consider this a pre-existing condition! I can feel my hypochondria kicking in.

 

[Kiki]

THIS IS AN EXTREMELY INTERESTING READ.



http://www.microbiologyresearch.org...est&checksum=E81BABD10CFA1791344DA8CE066E2893
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View attachment 1486262

Re read this article. This one is really really interesting.

 

[Kiki]

Re read this article. This one is really really interesting.

I just opened this link on my phone and it is not the full article like I am able to read on my computer. Weird. I will get back on the computer and screen shot the whole thing to post here.

 

[Kiki]

 

[lazy gardener]

THIS IS AN EXTREMELY INTERESTING READ.



http://www.microbiologyresearch.org...est&checksum=E81BABD10CFA1791344DA8CE066E2893
View attachment 1486259


View attachment 1486262

Agreed, the current Marek’s vaccination is concerning, to say the least.

I have long been standing on the soap box regarding vaccination for MD being a Pandora's box that should not be opened. The vaccine is leaky. The virus has been proven to mutate to a much more lethal strain, presumably b/c of the vaccine.

MD is common in soil. Yet, not all chickens develop MD. And even if one or more birds in a flock do develop clinical MD, the majority of the flock can remain asymptomatic.

I suggest that we all have been exposed to the virus that causes MD, whether we have chickens, any other birds, or have never even seen a chicken.

Given the number of immune suppressed folks in this country (due to medications they are taking to treat some illness, including auto-immune disease and cancers) wouldn't you think that if MD was capable of causing illness in humans, it would have been detected in that population by now?

 

[Kiki]

I have long been standing on the soap box regarding vaccination for MD being a Pandora's box that should not be opened. The vaccine is leaky. The virus has been proven to mutate to a much more lethal strain, presumably b/c of the vaccine.

MD is common in soil. Yet, not all chickens develop MD. And even if one or more birds in a flock do develop clinical MD, the majority of the flock can remain asymptomatic.

I suggest that we all have been exposed to the virus that causes MD, whether we have chickens, any other birds, or have never even seen a chicken.

Given the number of immune suppressed folks in this country (due to medications they are taking to treat some illness, including auto-immune disease and cancers) wouldn't you think that if MD was capable of causing illness in humans, it would have been detected in that population by now?

So yes Marek's disease has been found in humans...I guess my next question is what does it do to humans?


"Vertical transmission of MDV DNA has already been hypothesized for quail, where a portion of the MDV genome has been identified in the germline (Shih et al., 1989 R33 ). Knowing that in humans MDV DNA detection does not correlate with exposure to poultry and as exposure of the whole population to poultry is unlikely, chromosomal transmission of MDV-integrated DNA is a reasonable hypothesis.

Regardless of the status of MDV DNA in humans, our results demonstrate that MDV is or was able to cross the species barrier."

 

[Kiki]

Vertical transmission of MDV DNA has already been hypothesized for quail, where a portion of the MDV genome has been identified in the germline (Shih et al., 1989 R33 )

 

[Kiki]

I want to find this next study:

The detection of MDV DNA in human sera revives the question as to whether avian oncogenic herpesviruses are involved in human lymphoproliferative disorders. At least two human herpesviruses (EBV and KSHV) show remarkably strong associations with some human cancers (Griffin & Xue, 1998 R14 ; Schulz, 1998 R32 ). We intend to determine the prevalence of the MDV genome in the blood of cancer patients versus healthy persons to investigate a potential relationship between the presence of MDV and unexplained human lymphomas.