Responding to the message of 
from Cheryl Powell :

Check out this website:www.who.int/emc-documents/tse/docs/whocdscsraph2003.pdf
Must have ADOBE to open document. It is the WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATON INFECTION 
CONTROL GUIDELINES FOR TRANSMISSABLE SPONGIFORM ENCEPHALOPATHIES. Scroll to 
page 15.

 Under: Decontamination of work surfaces and decontamination of wastes and waste
contaminated materials:

"Surfaces contaminated by TSE agents can be disinfected by flooding for 1 hour, 
with NaOH or sodium hypochlorite, followed by water rinses." 

AND

"All wasted liquids and solids must be captured and treated as infectious waste.
Liquids used for cleaning should be decontaminated in situ by addition of NaOH 
or hypochlorite.

On page 14 under Decontaminatio of instruments they state: 

"Some instruments can be partly disassembled. Removable parts that would not be 
damaged by autoclaving, NaOH, or bleach should be dismounted and treated with 
these agents."

This document can also be found by doing a search (CJD) on the CDC's website.

Strong Formic Acid is used for the tissue sections, but I don't think anyone 
wants to wipe down a microtome with it or fill up a water bath container with 
it, or be wiping down surfaces with it, etc, etc. There are times when bleach is
better than nothing and this is one of them. Our equipment is all kept under a 
hood used ONLY for CJD cases and is ALWAYS considered contaminated. We could not
afford to purchase a new microtome every time we do one of these (if you used 
strong formic acid to clean it, you would have to)...so bleach or NaOH is the 
best alternative.




> 
> 

> 
One of the previous posts mentioned to clean everything possible with 
> bleach, even straight bleach.  I read a few more to see if anyone was 
> going to mention it but since I don't see it so far...   Everything 
> I've read and have documented for our CAP- approved procedural manual is to 
> use formic acid (I can't remember if it's 10% or straight) for several hours 
> to overnight even.  Bleach does not kill prions!!  Please don't 
> think that you've protected yourself or decontaminated your equipment  
> from a CJD case by using bleach.



> 
Cheryl Ann Powell B.S., 
>