Anyone have any knowledge of this? This is a tad concerning…
Extremely concerning. I wonder what the cost difference is between urine-derived and recombinant-derived HCG. I’m guessing large, or the latter would be more common than it is.
Recombinant hCG used to cost less than u-hCG does now. I am sure that they have raised their prices to take advantage.
How are you guys understanding the risks involved with HCG? Does it depend upon the supplier? Is it a genuine concern? Or a hyped-up media thing?
Elsewhere in this subforum I’ve read:
[quote]Daedalus wrote:
Only small prion sequences (8-10 amino acid length) were found in hCG extracted from urine; further work would need to be conducted before we can conclude that prions are actually present in urine-extracted hCG. [/quote]
Now that some time has passed, I’m just wondering what you guys are thinking about this.
Seems there is only one main brand of recombinant hCG marketed (Ovidrel), although there are other bulk manufacturers. Ovidrel is considerably more expensive ($70 for one 250mcg syringe) than other Indian sources of UhCG. Considering 40 or more years of injecting UhCG from God knows how many different sources indifferent countries (wherever hCG is currently cheapest), this would seem to be an ultra-efficient way of spreading a prion disease or some new other as yet undetected pathogen that might escape detection at first. Makes me think of the hemophiliacs in the early days of AIDS. Women might use hCG for fertility over a few weeks or months of a lifetime, whereas I am considering using it for a full half lifetime (decades of continuous use).
Maybe letting the gonads shrink is not such a bad idea. It certainly is making me reconsider pursuing treatment for low T at all. It certainly would be great to see or hear what new studies/safeguards are being instituted in light of this information in the past 13 months since this study report was completed.
Any other opinions?
EDIT: I just read that the 250mcg syringe of Ovidrel has a concentrate of RhCG that has the equivalent strength of 5000 to 6000 IU. So I guess $70 for a safe product is not so bad.
[quote] CactusBeats wrote:
Maybe letting the gonads shrink is not such a bad idea. It certainly is making me reconsider pursuing treatment for low T at all. [/quote]
Yeah, but it’s not just about aesthetics - many men indicate they have a better sense of well-being on HCG with TRT; functioning gonads just…umm…feel good! 
[quote] It certainly would be great to see or hear what new studies/safeguards are being instituted in light of this information in the past 13 months since this study report was completed.
Any other opinions? [/quote]
x2 - I’m amazed that more peeps aren’t talking about this. ??
I am thinking that perhaps most guys think this problem is too small to worry about, or maybe it’s just easier not to think about it at all because after all, what can one do? Looking at it from a purely numbers point-of-view can put it into perspective. The only estimate I have seen of proposed prion infection in humans comes from Great Britain where it is estimated at 100 in 1,000,000 or 1 in 10,000. It might be safe to assume that Great Britain has the highest human infection of a prion based disease (variant Creutzfeldt-Jacob Disease that is thought to have come from GB’s Mad Cow epidemic), but we really don’t know the numbers for prion disease anywhere else in the world. Now lets compare that to HIV infection in the U.S. which is estimated at 1.2 million out of 310 million or 1 out of 258. That would mean that prion infection in Great Britain is about 40 times less prevalent than HIV infection in the U.S. Is this a number worth gambling with? Most people now are educated enough to practice safe sex to protect themselves against STD’s including HIV. Is something 40 times less prevalent small enough to ignore?
If one injected UhCG every other day for 54 years and 277 days (10,000 injections) then he essentially has a 1:1 chance of injecting prion disease at the Great Britain rate of infection. If one injects UhCG every other day for 27 years and 139 days then one has a 1:2 chance of infecting one’s self. And these numbers assume that when one injects he is only injecting from a single donor each time, which we know cannot be the case.
So to be more accurate lets consider the following. I am unaware of how many donor women it takes to fill a 5000 IU vial, but for ease of calculation lets say 100 (at 50 IU per woman). The reality is that each 5000 IU vial will last (with avg inj of 250 IU) 40 days and so one will be injecting the same 100 female donors’ hCG over 40 days, 20 times. Over 10,000 injections or 54 years 277 days one will be injecting the contents of 500 5000 IU vials which adds up to 50,000 women donors over that period of time. At 5,000 injections over 27 years 139 days we have 250 5000 IU vials and 25,000 donor women. These numbers mean that in order to be exposed to only 10,000 donor women equalling the 1:10,000 chance of exposure in Great Britain, it would only take a guy 2,000 injections or just under 11 years to be exposed! A 1:2 chance of exposure would occur in just under 5 and 1/2 years! These are terrible odds to play with.
If you are buying American UhCG are you safer? Well Mad Cow Disease (the suspected source of prion disease in humans vCJD) was not nearly as rampant here as it was in Great Britain, but we do have prion disease in North America besides Mad Cow. I live in an area where prion disease is thriving in the forests around me. It’s called chronic wasting disease and it thrives in ungulates like white tailed deer. Just over a week ago the gun harvest of white tailed deer in WI was estimated at 236,260. Now any deer “that appear” to be infected are supposed to be detroyed, but how many infected deer that do not appear to have the disease are being consumed by families and distributed by food pantries around the state? No way to know. Prion disease can sit dormant for years, even decades within animals and humans. Where else in the world is wild game a vector for prion disease in humans? What are Indian women eating? Do we know?
Pooling the urine of thousands of woman at a time in the extraction process??!! The odds are even much worse than I proposed (100) above by at least a factor of 10 and probably more (“thousands”). Not 100 donors per vial, but thousands!! You couldn’t design a more efficient method to spread prionuria. This info comes from the full paper (which I had at first failed to read) which can be read after the brief abstract.
"So there are prions in the urine-derived hCG ? should we be concerned? From the paper (emphasis mine):
Current urine collection systems pool the urine of thousands of donors and, unlike the blood collection system, do not allow for donor tracing. There is also no mechanism of ensuring that the designated donor is actually the one who provides the urine, as donation is normally done at home. However, even if donor management and tracing were flawless, the fact that prionuria may exist well before the onset of clinically overt prion disease, without being detectable by current methods, remains a cause for concern."
Wow, nice posts, thanks. Depressing though - I’ve been using for almost 2 years now.
I remember watching a 60 minutes piece on Creutzfeldt-Jacob Disease - it was long ago, but they focused on one young man who had the disease and what was interesting is that his whole family had eaten the same meat, etc. But he came down with the disease and his parents/siblings did not. So perhaps exposure to prions is not the whole story - that there’s a genetic component as well?
Some people look for things to be scared of.
[quote]VTBalla34 wrote:
Some people look for things to be scared of.[/quote]
And some people actually think when there appears to be something to be scared of.
I’m not saying to fly in blind, obviously exercise a little prudence when you are putting stuff into your body…but there are risks to everything…if you allow them to cripple you emotionally, they will…
It appears some people use these sort of fears and insecurities to justify why they never seek to improve themselves (medically, physically, emotionally, whatever)…its almost as if they enjoy their current condition, no matter how much they complain about it, and avoid anything that might significantly improve it…
You said yourself you have been using for 2 years now…have you had any problems? There are millions of people out there right now on this retarded HCG diet–I don’t hear them having any issues…
1 Like
I certainly am not looking for excuses not to start TRT. If TRT is for me then I will use recombinant hCG whenever it is available. When Mad Cow hit Great Britain as it showed up in humans it disproportionately hit young people more than old (but not 100% in younger people), whereas the genetic version of CJD mostly hits older people. Perhaps young people are more susceptable to the spreadable version, vCJD. Not sure what the age cutoff for younger people was though. Prion disease can sit dormant for years, even decades within animals and humans. If you contract vCJD it is 100% fatal, usually within two to six months from diagnosis.
I personally have experience with potential infection from an accidental needle stick from a person infected with HIV/Hep C/Mersa. I got myself on the PEP Program (Combivir) at hour 69 after exposure. 72 hours is the cutoff for PEP (Post Exposure Prophylaxis). I beat HIV and Hep C. Within a week I began having absesses from Mersa which I only beat with a week long hospital stay with two IV antibiotics.
I KNOW what it is like to have a needle stuck in my body with some of the worst pathogens you can imagine. I know what that feels like emotionally and what the ramifications are of a needle sticking into my body with someone else’s bodily fluids inside. I DO NOT want to go down that road again. I want to know EXACTLY what the risks and odds are to injecting a substance from THOUSANDS of other women each time I inject. It still sounds like madness. I want to be informed completely because I VALUE my health greatly after this experience. Sticking my head in the sand and hoping for the best IS NOT a strategy for a healthy life in light of this information. That’s my take. I am certainly not telling anyone else how to feel. I can still respect your take on this even if I don’t agree with it. Please also respect mine.
EDIT: I cannot wait to begin to finally get treatment for my low T. Been living with the symptoms for way too long now. I just want the treatment to be as safe as possible. That’s all.
[quote]CactusBeats wrote:
I certainly am not looking for excuses not to start TRT. If TRT is for me then I will use recombinant hCG whenever it is available. When Mad Cow hit Great Britain as it showed up in humans it disproportionately hit young people more than old (but not 100% in younger people), whereas the genetic version of CJD mostly hits older people. Perhaps young people are more susceptable to the spreadable version, vCJD. Not sure what the age cutoff for younger people was though. Prion disease can sit dormant for years, even decades within animals and humans. If you contract vCJD it is 100% fatal, usually within two to six months from diagnosis.
I personally have experience with potential infection from an accidental needle stick from a person infected with HIV/Hep C/Mersa. I got myself on the PEP Program (Combivir) at hour 69 after exposure. 72 hours is the cutoff for PEP (Post Exposure Prophylaxis). I beat HIV and Hep C. Within a week I began having absesses from Mersa which I only beat with a week long hospital stay with two IV antibiotics.
I KNOW what it is like to have a needle stuck in my body with some of the worst pathogens you can imagine. I know what that feels like emotionally and what the ramifications are of a needle sticking into my body with someone else’s bodily fluids inside. I DO NOT want to go down that road again. I want to know EXACTLY what the risks and odds are to injecting a substance from THOUSANDS of other women each time I inject. It still sounds like madness. I want to be informed completely because I VALUE my health greatly after this experience. Sticking my head in the sand and hoping for the best IS NOT a strategy for a healthy life in light of this information. That’s my take. I am certainly not telling anyone else how to feel. I can still respect your take on this even if I don’t agree with it. Please also respect mine.[/quote]
Sounds purty smart to me.