What really gets me is that not even ordinary autoclaving can destroy the CJD prions. Those things are fucking terrifying. Look at sterilization recommendations for surgical instruments that have been exposed to them. The first recommendation is “destroy them.” The second is, “if you simply must reuse them, boil them in lye in an autoclave for an hour.” And even then we’re not really sure if this is effective at sterilizing contaminated instruments; the recommendations are based more on lab studies, studies in Petri dishes basically. They’re largely not based on actual studies on contaminated surgical implements.
What really gets me is that not even ordinary autoclaving can destroy the CJD prions. Those things are fucking terrifying. Look at sterilization recommendations for surgical instruments that have been exposed to them. The first recommendation is “destroy them.” The second is, “if you simply must reuse them, boil them in lye in an autoclave for an hour.” And even then we’re not really sure if this is effective at sterilizing contaminated instruments; the recommendations are based more on lab studies, studies in Petri dishes basically. They’re largely not based on actual studies on contaminated surgical implements.