Scott P. Edwards
Scott P. Edwards is a freelance health and medical writer based in Holliston, Mass. He has written for Harvard Medical School, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, the Mayo Clinic, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and the H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center. He can be reached at scottpedwards@verizon.net.
Prying Into Prions
Challenges, Gloom and Hope for Treating Deadly DiseasesPrion diseases such as "mad cow" turn the brains of otherwise healthy people into a spongy mush, inevitably killing them. Now researchers are beginning to understand how mutant prion proteins cause this destruction.
Prion Diseases Rare But Deadly
Mad cow and other prion diseases, although fatal, are also very rare and have caused what some scientists says is irrational fear.