Article states: (and I'll only pick on this one error out of many)

ABSOLUTE POPPYCOCK!

(Another not so perfect article has some good points to it, though)

No article is perfect.  Even this one makes false claims!  PrPC knock-out mice have been reported to be screwed-up by other labs,  BSE has never been proven to cause vCJD, CJD etc.   As they could be caused by similar mechanisms totally unrelated to consumption of meat by humans, etc.

Dr. Stanley Prusiner recently stated that the conversion of the protein to its malformed shape must have something to do with multivalent electrostatic interactions:

 "we synthesized a series of Keggin-type polyoxometalate (POM) complexes, which demonstrated superior ability to precipitate PrPSc

selectively. Our results suggest that prion aggregation may involve multivalent electrostatic interactions between the POM anions and positively charged cleft sites of PrPSc."

Note: Aggregation involves "multivalent electrostatic interactions" 

"Valence - (webster's dictionary) - the capacity of an element or radical to combine with another to form molecules, as measured by the number of hydrogen or chlorine atoms which one radical or one atom of the element will combine with or replace.

The healthy prion (PrPC) has been, for some time now, shown to also possess anti-oxidant function similar to superoxide dismutase (SOD).

Dr. DR. Brown's latest paper describes how hydrogen peroxide (a radical) can cleave (break apart) the prion into smaller fragments capable of aggregation: