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USDA vets question agency's mad cow lab
USDA vets question agency's mad cow lab
By Steve Mitchell United Press International 2-16-4 WASHINGTON, Feb. 9 (UPI) -- The federal laboratory in Ames, Iowa, that conducts all of the nation's tests for mad cow disease has a history of producing ambiguous and conflicting results -- to the point where many federal meat inspectors have lost confidence in it, Department of Agriculture veterinarians and a deer rancher told United Press International. The veterinarians also claim the facility -- part of the USDA and known as the National Veterinary Services Laboratories -- has refused to release testing results to them and has been so secretive some suspect it is covering up additional mad cow cases. Distrust of the NVSL is so widespread among USDA veterinarians and meat inspectors it limits mad cow disease surveillance "tremendously," said a veterinarian with more than 25 years of experience with the agency. The veterinarian, who requested anonymity because he feared repercussions, said many agency inspectors do not consider it worth the trouble to inspect cows closely for signs of mad cow disease or to send brain samples to the NVSL because there is little chance the lab will issue a positive result, even if the cow is infected. In some instances, when USDA veterinarian inspectors have sent brains from cows they suspected of having mad cow disease, NVSL staff members have said they did not receive enough brain tissue or that they received the wrong part of the brain, the veterinarian explained. The inspectors insisted they sent in the entire brain, "but that is the end of the story," he added. The USDA's official stance is that the U.S. beef supply is free of mad cow disease, or bovine spongiform encephlopathy, but the veterinarian said, "Most agency veterinarians know mad cow is prevalent and epidemic (in U.S. herds). We're not talking about one or two cases." An international panel of mad cow experts, commissioned by the USDA to review the agency's response to the animal that tested positive for mad cow in Washington state in December, reached a similar conclusion in a report they issued last week. The panel said it was "probable" additional infected cows had been imported from Canada and Europe, some of which had been turned into cow feed and indigenously infected U.S. herds. The concern is humans can contract a fatal brain disease known as variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease from eating meat contaminated with the agent that causes mad cow disease. "The USDA has such a cohesive relationship with industry" that it wants to protect the $70 billion beef industry more than consumers, the veterinarian said, and noted colleagues with whom he is in close contact think the agency's mad cow surveillance program "is a laughing matter." When asked to comment for this story, USDA spokesman Jim Rogers requested UPI forward its questions about NVSL via e-mail. Although UPI complied with this request, the agency did not respond. ...................' http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=...9-061848-3665r |
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USDA vets question agency's mad cow lab
Wouldn't it seem that any concerned vets could send samples to an independent lab for confirmation? That would effectively squelch speculation. |
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USDA vets question agency's mad cow lab
"John Gaquin" > wrote in message ...
> > Wouldn't it seem that any concerned vets could send samples to an > independent lab for confirmation? That would effectively squelch > speculation. 'Without an outside lab also conducting tests, "we are not going to have a very independent analysis. It's very easy to control the results," ... The international panel's report advised the USDA to decentralize its mad cow testing program and permit other labs around the country to conduct tests and help facilitate the rapid testing of suspect animals. Friedlander said decentralizing the testing would be a good start toward restoring confidence in the results. Right now, he added, "Nobody is actually questioning the lab" or conducting confirmation tests of the results. ...' http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=...9-061848-3665r |
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USDA vets question agency's mad cow lab
"pearl" > wrote in message ... > USDA vets question agency's mad cow lab > By Steve Mitchell > United Press International > "The USDA has such a cohesive relationship with industry" that it > wants to protect the $70 billion beef industry more than consumers, > the veterinarian said, and noted colleagues with whom he is in close > contact think the agency's mad cow surveillance program "is a > laughing matter." > "cohesive relationship" lol Actually the USDA (Inc) is the industry. The head PR wench, and the No.2 guy both came to the agency from the Cattleman's Ass'n. Think it was this same wire service, upi, that's been trying for many months to get documentation to verify the USDA claim that they tested 20k cows. Imo, it's much ado about nothing. Recalling the major outbreak in the UK, about a dozen yrs ago (?), you'd think by now there's scientific proof that humans can catch it from cows. (the 140 or so, deaths in UK were not randomly distributed, they tended to occur in clusters). I suspect there's some other culprit than those prions, but all the research funding is limited to prions. |
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USDA vets question agency's mad cow lab
"Jon Leipzig" > wrote in message ...
> > "pearl" > wrote in message > ... > > USDA vets question agency's mad cow lab > > By Steve Mitchell > > United Press International > > > > "The USDA has such a cohesive relationship with industry" that it > > wants to protect the $70 billion beef industry more than consumers, > > the veterinarian said, and noted colleagues with whom he is in close > > contact think the agency's mad cow surveillance program "is a > > laughing matter." > > > "cohesive relationship" lol > Actually the USDA (Inc) is the industry. > The head PR wench, and the No.2 guy both came to the agency from the > Cattleman's Ass'n. > > Think it was this same wire service, upi, that's been trying for many months > to get documentation to verify the USDA > claim that they tested 20k cows. > > Imo, it's much ado about nothing. Recalling the major outbreak in the UK, > about a dozen yrs ago (?), you'd think by now there's scientific proof > that humans can catch it from cows. (the 140 or so, deaths in UK were not > randomly distributed, they tended to occur in clusters). > I suspect there's some other culprit than those prions, but all the research > funding is limited to prions. <repost> Could Mad Cow Disease Already be Killing Thousands of Americans Every Year? by Michael Greger, M.D. Wednesday, January 7, 2004 by CommonDreams.org October 2001, 34-year-old Washington State native Peter Putnam started losing his mind. One month he was delivering a keynote business address, the next he couldn't form a complete sentence. Once athletic, soon he couldn't walk. Then he couldn't eat. After a brain biopsy showed it was Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, his doctor could no longer offer any hope. "Just take him home and love him," the doctor counseled his family.[1,2,3] Peter's tragic death, October 2002, may have been caused by Mad Cow disease. Seven years earlier and 5000 miles away, Stephen Churchill was the first in England to die. His first symptoms of depression and dizziness gave way to a living nightmare of terrifying hallucinations; he was dead in 12 months at age 19.[4] Next was Peter Hall, 20, who showed the first signs of depression around Christmas, 1994. By the next Christmas, he couldn't walk, talk, or do anything for himself.[5] Then it was Anna's turn, then Michelle's. Michelle Bowen, age 29, died in a coma three weeks after giving birth to her son via emergency cesarean section. Then it was Alison's turn. These were the first five named victims of Britain's Mad Cow epidemic. They died from what the British Secretary of Health called the worst form of death imaginable, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, a relentlessly progressive and invariably fatal human dementia.[6] The announcement of their deaths, released on March 20, 1996 (ironically, Meatout Day[7]), reversed the British government's decade-old stance that British beef was safe to eat.[8] It is now considered an "incontestable fact" that these human deaths in Britain were caused by Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE), or Mad Cow disease.[9] Bovine means "cow or cattle," spongiform means "sponge-like," and encephalopathy means "brain disease." Mad Cow disease is caused by unconventional pathogens called prions--literally infectious proteins--which, because of their unique structure, are practically invulnerable, surviving even incineration[10] at temperatures hot enough to melt lead.[11] The leading theory as to how cows got Mad Cow disease in the first place is by eating diseased sheep infected with a sheep spongiform encephalopathy called scrapie.[12] In humans, prions can cause Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD), a human spongiform encephalopathy whose clinical picture can involve weekly deterioration into blindness and epilepsy as one's brain becomes riddled with tiny holes. We've known about Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease for decades, since well before the first mad cow was discovered in 1985. Some cases of CJD seemed to run in families; other cases seemed to just arise spontaneously in about one in a million people every year, and were hence dubbed "sporadic." The new form of CJD caused by eating beef from cows infected with Mad Cow disease, though, seemed to differ from the classic sporadic CJD. The CJD caused by infected meat has tended to strike younger people, has produced more psychotic symptoms, and has often dragged on for a year or more. The most defining characteristic, though, was found when their brains were sampled. The brain pathology was vividly reminiscent of Kuru, a disease once found in a New Guinea tribe of cannibals who ate the brains of their dead.[13] Scientists called this new form of the disease "variant" CJD. Other than Charlene, a 24 year old woman now so tragically dying in Florida, who was probably infected in Britain, there have been no reported cases of variant CJD in the U.S.[14] Hundreds of confirmed cases of the sporadic form of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, however, arise in the United States every year,[15] but the beef industry is quick to point out these are cases of sporadic CJD, not the new variant known to be caused by Mad Cow disease.[16] Of course, no one knows what causes sporadic CJD. New research, discussed below, suggests that not hundreds but thousands of Americans die of sporadic CJD every year, and that some of these CJD deaths may be caused by eating infected meat after all. Although the fact that Mad Cow disease causes variant CJD had already been strongly established, researchers at the University College of London nevertheless created transgenic mice complete with "humanized" brains genetically engineered with human genes to try to prove the link once and for all. When the researchers injected one strain of the "humanized" mice with infected cow brains, they came down with the same brain damage seen in human variant CJD, as expected. But when they tried this in a different strain of transgenic "humanized" mice, those mice got sick too, but most got sick from what looked exactly like sporadic CJD! The Mad Cow prions caused a disease that had a molecular signature indistinguishable from sporadic CJD. To the extent that animal experiments can simulate human results, their shocking conclusion was that eating infected meat might be responsible for some cases of sporadic CJD in addition to the expected variant CJD. The researchers concluded that "it is therefore possible that some patients with [what looks like] .... sporadic CJD may have a disease arising from BSE exposure."[17] Laura Manuelidis, section chief of surgery in the neuropathology department at Yale University comments, "Now people are beginning to realize that because something looks like sporadic CJD they can't necessarily conclude that it's not linked to [Mad Cow disease]..."[18] This is not the first time meat was linked to sporadic CJD. In 2001, a team of French researchers found, to their complete surprise, a strain of scrapie--"mad sheep" disease--that caused the same brain damage in mice as sporadic CJD.[19] "This means we cannot rule out that at least some sporadic CJD may be caused by some strains of scrapie," says team member Jean-Philippe Deslys of the French Atomic Energy Commission's medical research laboratory.[20] Population studies had failed to show a link between CJD and lamb chops, but this French research provided an explanation why. There seem to be six types of sporadic CJD and there are more than 20 strains of scrapie. If only some sheep strains affect only some people, studies of entire populations may not clearly show the relationship. Monkeys fed infected sheep brains certainly come down with the disease.[21] Hundreds of "mad sheep" were found in the U.S. in 2003.[22] Scrapie remains such a problem in the United States that the USDA has issued a scrapie "declaration of emergency."[23] Maybe some cases of sporadic CJD in the U.S. are caused by sheep meat as well.[24] Pork is also a potential source of infection. Cattle remains are still boiled down and legally fed to pigs (as well as chickens) in this country. The FDA allows this exemption because no "naturally occurring" porcine (pig) spongiform encephalopathy has ever been found. But American farmers typically kill pigs at just five months of age, long before the disease is expected to show symptoms. And, because pigs are packed so tightly together, it would be difficult to spot neurological conditions like spongiform encephalopathies, whose most obvious symptoms are movement and gait disturbances. We do know, however, that pigs are susceptible to the disease--laboratory experiments show that pigs can indeed be infected by Mad Cow brains[25]--and hundreds of thousands of downer pigs, too sick or crippled by injury to even walk, arrive at U.S. slaughterhouses every year.[26] A number of epidemiological studies have suggested a link between pork consumption and sporadic CJD. Analyzing peoples' diet histories, the development of CJD was associated with eating roast pork, ham, hot dogs, pork chops, smoked pork, and scrapple (a kind of pork pudding made from various hog carcass scraps). The researchers concluded, "The present study indicated that consumption of pork as well as its processed products (e.g., ham, scrapple) may be considered as risk factors in the development of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease." Compared to people that didn't eat ham, for example, those who included ham in their diet seemed ten times more likely to develop CJD.[27] In fact, the USDA may have actually recorded an outbreak of "mad pig" disease in New York 25 years ago, but still refuses to reopen the investigation despite petitions from the Consumer's Union (the publishers of Consumer Reports magazine).[28] Sporadic CJD has also been associated with weekly beef consumption,[29] as well as the consumption of roast lamb,[30] veal, venison, brains in general,[31] and, in North America, seafood.[32,33] The development of CJD has also, surprisingly, been significantly linked to exposure to animal products in fertilizer,[34] sport fishing and deer hunting in the U.S.,[35] and frequent exposure to leather products.[36] We do not know at this time whether chicken meat poses a risk. There was a preliminary report of ostriches allegedly fed risky feed in German zoos who seemed to come down with a spongiform encephalopathy.[37] Even if chickens and turkeys themselves are not susceptible, though, they may become so-called "silent carriers" of Mad Cow prions and pass them on to human consumers.[38] Dateline NBC quoted D. Carleton Gajdusek, the first to be awarded a Nobel Prize in Medicine for his work on prion diseases,[39] as saying, "it's got to be in the pigs as well as the cattle. It's got to be passing through the chickens."[40] Dr. Paul Brown, medical director for the US Public Health Service, believes that pigs and poultry could indeed be harboring Mad Cow disease and passing it on to humans, adding that pigs are especially sensitive to the disease. "It's speculation," he says, "but I am perfectly serious."[41] The recent exclusion of most cow brains, eyes, spinal cords, and intestines from the human food supply may make beef safer, but where are those tissues going? These potentially infectious tissues continue to go into animal feed for chickens, other poultry, pigs, and pets (as well as being rendered into products like tallow for use in cosmetics, the safety of which is currently under review[42]). Until the federal government stops the feeding of slaughterhouse waste, manure, and blood to all farm animals, the safety of meat in America cannot be guaranteed. The hundreds of American families stricken by sporadic CJD every year have been told that it just occurs by random chance. Professor Collinge, the head of the University College of London lab, noted "When you counsel those who have the classical sporadic disease, you tell them that it arises spontaneously out of the blue. I guess we can no longer say that." "We are not saying that all or even most cases of sporadic CJD are as a result of BSE exposure," Professor Collinge continued, "but some more recent cases may be-- the incidence of sporadic CJD has shown an upward trend in the UK over the last decade... serious consideration should be given to a proportion of this rise being BSE-related. Switzerland, which has had a substantial BSE epidemic, has noted a sharp recent increase in sporadic CJD."[43] In the Nineties, Switzerland had the highest rate of Mad Cow disease in continental Europe, and their rate of sporadic CJD doubled.[44] We don't know exactly what's happening to the rate of CJD in this country, in part because CJD is not an officially notifiable illness.[45] Currently only a few states have such a requirement. Because the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) does not actively monitor the disease on a national level,[46] a rise similar to the one in Europe could be missed.[47] In spite of this, a number of U.S. CJD clusters have already been found. In the largest known U.S. outbreak of sporadic cases to date,[48] five times the expected rate was found to be associated with cheese consumption in Pennsylvania's Lehigh Valley.[49] A striking increase in CJD over expected levels was also reported in Florida[50] and New York (Nassau County)[51] with anecdotal reports of clusters of deaths in Oregon[52] and New Jersey.[53] Perhaps particularly worrisome is the seeming increase in CJD deaths among young people in this country. In the 18 years between 1979 and 1996, only a single case of sporadic CJD was found in someone under 30. Whereas between 1997 and 2001, five people under 30 died of sporadic CJD. So five young Americans dying in five years, as opposed to one young case in the previous 18 years. The true prevalence of CJD among any age group in this country remains a mystery, though, in part because it is so commonly misdiagnosed.[54] The most frequent misdiagnosis of CJD among the elderly is Alzheimer's disease.[55] Neither CJD nor Alzheimer's can be conclusively diagnosed without a brain biopsy,[56] and the symptoms and pathology of both diseases overlap. There can be spongy changes in Alzheimer's, for example, and senile Alzheimer's plaques in CJD.[57] Stanley Prusiner, the scientist who won the Nobel Prize for his discovery of prions, speculates that Alzheimer's may even turn out to be a prion disease as well.[58] In younger victims, CJD is more often misdiagnosed as multiple sclerosis or as a severe viral infection.[59] Over the last 20 years the rates of Alzheimer's disease in the United States have skyrocketed.[60] According to the CDC, Alzheimer's Disease is now the eighth leading cause of death in the United States,[61] afflicting an estimated 4 million Americans.[62] Twenty percent or more of people clinically diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease, though, are found at autopsy not to have had Alzheimer's at all.[63] A number of autopsy studies have shown that a few percent of Alzheimer's deaths may in fact be CJD. Given the new research showing that infected beef may be responsible for some sporadic CJD, thousands of Americans may already be dying because of Mad Cow disease every year.[64] Nobel Laureate Gajdusek, for example, estimates that 1% of people showing up in Alzheimer clinics actually have CJD.[65] At Yale, out of a series of 46 patients clinically diagnosed with Alzheimer's, six were proven to have CJD at autopsy.[66] In another study of brain biopsies, out of a dozen patients diagnosed with Alzheimer's according to established criteria, three of them were actually dying from CJD.[67] An informal survey of neuropathologists registered a suspicion that CJD accounts for 2-12% of all dementias in general.[68] Two autopsy studies showed a CJD rate among dementia deaths of about 3%.[69,70] A third study, at the University of Pennsylvania, showed that 5% of patients diagnosed with dementia had CJD.[71] Although only a few hundred cases of sporadic CJD are officially reported in the U.S. annually,[72] hundreds of thousands of Americans die with dementia every year.[73] Thousands of these deaths may actually be from CJD caused by eating infected meat. The incubation period for human spongiform encephalopathies such as CJD can be decades.[74] This means it can be years between eating infected meat and getting diagnosed with the death sentence of CJD. Although only about 150 people have so far been diagnosed with variant CJD worldwide, it will be many years before the final death toll is known. In the United States, an unknown number of animals are infected with Mad Cow disease, causing an unknown number of human deaths from CJD. The U.S. should immediately begin testing all cows destined for human consumption, as is done in Japan, should stop feeding slaughterhouse waste to all farm animals (see http://organicconsumers.org/madcow/GregerBSE.cfm), and should immediately enact an active national surveillance program for CJD.[75] Five years ago this week, the Center for Food Safety, the Humane Farming Association, the Center for Media & Democracy, and ten families of CJD victims petitioned the FDA and the CDC to immediately enact a national CJD monitoring system, including the mandatory reporting of CJD in all 50 states.[76] The petition was denied.[77] The CDC argued that their passive surveillance system tracking death certificate diagnoses was adequate. Their analysis of death certificates in three states and two cities, for example, showed an overall stable and typical one in a million CJD incidence rate from 1979 to 1993.[78] But CJD is so often misdiagnosed, and autopsies are so infrequently done, that this system may not provide an accurate assessment.[79] In 1997, the CDC set up the National Prion Disease Pathology Surveillance Center at Case Western Reserve University to analyze brain tissue from CJD victims in the U.S. in hopes of tracking any new developments. In Europe, surveillance centers have been seeing most, if not all, cases of CJD. The U.S. center sees less than half. "I'm very unhappy with the numbers," laments Pierluigi Gambetti , the director of the Center. "The British and Germans politely smile when they see we examine 30% or 40% of the cases," he says. "They know unless you examine 80% or more, you are not in touch."[80] "The chance of losing an important case is high."[81] One problem is that many doctors don't even know the Center exists. And neither the CDC nor the Center are evidently authorized to reach out to them directly to bolster surveillance efforts, because it's currently up to each state individually to determine how--or even whether--they will track the disease. In Europe, in contrast, the national centers work directly with each affected family and their physicians.[82] In the U.S., most CJD cases--even the confirmed ones--seem to just fall through the cracks. In fact, based on the autopsy studies at Yale and elsewhere, it seems most CJD cases in the U.S. aren't even picked up in the first place. Autopsy rates have dropped in the U.S. from 50% in the Sixties to less than 10% at present.[83] Although one reason autopsies are rarely performed on atypical dementia cases is that medical professionals are afraid of catching the disease,[84] the primary reason for the decline in autopsy rates in general appears to be financial. There is currently no direct reimbursement to doctors or hospitals for doing autopsies, which often forces the family to absorb the cost of transporting the body to an autopsy center and having the brain samples taken, a tab that can run upwards of $1500.[85] Another problem is that the National Prion Disease Pathology Surveillance Center itself remains underfunded. Paul Brown, medical director for the National Institutes of Health, has described the Center's budget as "pitiful," complaining that "there isn't any budget for CJD surveillance."[86] To adequately survey America's 290 million residents, "you need a lot of money." UK CJD expert Robert Will explains, "There was a CJD meeting of families in America in which... [the CDC] got attacked fairly vigorously because there wasn't proper surveillance. You could only do proper surveillance if you have adequate resources."[87] "I compare this to the early days of AIDS," says protein chemist Shu Chen, who directs the Center's lab, "when no one wanted to deal with the crisis."[88] Andrew Kimbrell, the director of the Center for Food Safety, a D.C.-based public interest group, writes, "Given what we know now, it is unconscionable that the CDC is not strictly monitoring these diseases."[89] Given the presence of Mad Cow disease in the U.S., we need to immediately enact uniform active CJD surveillance on a national level, provide adequate funding not only for autopsies but also for the shipment of bodies, and require mandatory reporting of the disease in all 50 states. In Britain, even feline spongiform encephalopathy, the cat version of Mad Cow disease, is an officially notifiable illness. "No one has looked for CJD systematically in the U.S.," notes NIH medical director Paul Brown. "Ever."[90] The animal agriculture industries continue to risk public safety, and the government seems to protect the industries' narrow business interests more than it protects its own citizens. Internal USDA documents retrieved through the Freedom of Information Act show that our government did indeed consider a number of precautionary measures as far back as 1991 to protect the American public from Mad Cow disease. According to one such document, however, the USDA explained that the "disadvantage" of these measures was that "the cost to the livestock and rendering industries would be substantial."[91] Plant sources of protein for farm animals can cost up to 30% more than cattle remains.[92] The Cattlemen's Association admitted a decade ago that animal agribusiness could indeed find economically feasible alternatives to feeding slaughterhouse waste to other animals, but that the they did not want to set a precedent of being ruled by "activists."[93] Is it a coincidence that USDA Secretary Veneman chose Dale Moore, former chief lobbyist for the National Cattlemen's Beef Association, as her chief of staff?[94] Or Alison Harrison, former director of public relations for the Cattlemen's Association, as her official spokeswoman?[95] Or that one of the new Mad Cow committee appointees is William Hueston, who was paid by the beef industry to testify against Oprah Winfrey in hopes of convicting her of beef "disparagement"?[96] After a similar conflict of interest unfolded in Britain, their entire Ministry of Agriculture was dissolved and an independent Food Safety Agency was created, whose sole responsibility is to protect the public's health. Until we learn from Britain's lesson, and until the USDA stops treating this as a PR problem to be managed instead of a serious global threat, [97] millions of Americans will remain at risk. Michael Greger, M.D., has been the Chief BSE Investigator for Farm Sanctuary since 1993 and the Mad Cow Coordinator for the Organic Consumers Association since 2001. For periodic updates on the Mad Cow crisis send a blank email to REFERENCES: (Full text of specific articles available by emailing ) 1 Spokesman Review. 22 September 2003 http://www.organicconsumers.org/madcow/putnam92203.cfm 2 HealthDayNews. 26 September 2003 http://www.healthday.com/view.cfm?id=515265 3 Reuters. 27 December 2003 http://www.organicconsumers.org/madcow/cjd122703.cfm 4 Moyes, Jojo. "Depression Leads to Painful Death." Independent 21 March 1996: 1. 5 "Victims' Families Cry Cover-Up by Protecting Beef Industry, Government Cost Lives, They Say." Miami Herald 26 March 1996: 7A. 6 PA News 30 November 1998. 7 http://meatout.org/ 8 Brown, Paul. "Beef Crisis." Guardian 26 March 1996a: 7. 9 British Medical Journal 322(2001):841. 10 Journal of Infectious Diseases 161 (1990): 467-472. 11 Bentor, Yinon. Chemical Element.com - Lead. Jun. 3, 2003. http://www.chemicalelements.com/elements/pb.html 12 British Medical Journal 322(2001):841. 13 Bulletin of the World Health Organization 70 (1992): 183- 190. 14 http://www.organicconsumers.org/madcow/florida1304.cfm 15 Journal of the American Medical Association, November 8, 2000; 284(18). 16 http://www.bseinfo.org/dsp/dsplocati...ocationId=1267 17 "BSE prions propagate as either variant CJD-like or sporadic CJD-like prion strains in transgenic mice expressing human prion protein." EMBO Journal, Vol. 21, No. 23, 6358-6368, 2002. http://emboj.oupjournals.org/cgi/con...ull/21/23/6358 18 United Press International. 29 December 2003. http://organicconsumers.org/madcow/CJD122903.cfm 19 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 98(2001):4142. 20 "BSE may cause more CJD cases than thought New Scientist 28 November 2002. 21 Journal of Infectious Disease 142(1980):205-8. 22 http://www.aphis.usda.gov/vs/nahps/s...ly-report.html 23 March 17, 2000 Federal Register (Volume 65,:Page 14521). http://www.mad-cow.org/00/apr00scrapie.html 24 "Sheep consumption: a possible source of spongiform encephalopathy in humans." Neuroepidemiology. 4(1985):240-9. 25 The Veterinary Record 127(1990):338. 26 National Hog Farmer. 15 February 2002. 27 American Journal of Epidemiology Vol. 122, No. 3 (1985), pgs. 443-451. 28 http://www.consumersunion.org/food/psecpi301.htm 29 Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease surveillance in the UK: sixth annual report 1997. Edinburgh, Scotland: National CJD Surveillance Unit, 1998. 30 American Journal of Epidemiology Vol. 122, No. 3 (1985), pgs. 443-451. 31 Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease surveillance in the UK: sixth annual report 1997. Edinburgh, Scotland: National CJD Surveillance Unit, 1998. 32 Quarterly Journal of Medicine 93(2000):617. 33 American Journal of Epidemiology 98( 1973):381-394. 34 Lancet 1998; 351:1081-5. 35 American Journal of Epidemiology 122(1985)443-451. 36 Lancet 1998; 351:1081-5. 37 Schoon, H.A., Brunckhorst, D. and Pohlenz J. (1991) Spongiform Encephalopathy in a Red-Necked Ostrich, Tierartzliche Praxis, 19, 263-5 38 Journal of Virology 75(21):10073-89 (2001). 39 http://www.nobel.se/medicine/laureat...k-lecture.html 40 NBC Dateline 14 March 1997. 41 Pearce, Fred. "BSE May Lurk in Pigs and Chickens." New Scientist 6 April 1996: 5. 42 http://organicconsumers.org/madcow/tallow123103.cfm 43 "BSE May Have Caused Some Cases Of CJD As Well As vCJD." The Guardian. 29 November 2002. 44 Lancet 360(2002):139-141. 45 Neuroepidemiology 14 (1995): 174-181. 46 http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/diseases/cjd/bsecjdqa.htm 47 Altman, Lawrence K. "U.S. Officials Confident That Mad Cow Disease of Britain Has Not Occurred Here." New York Times 27 March 1996: 12A. 48 Flannery, Mary. "Twelve - Fifteen 'Mad Cow' Victims a Year in Area." Philadelphia Daily News 26 March 1996: 03. 49 Neurology 43 (1993): A316. 50 Neurology 44 (1994): A260. 51 Annals of Clinical and Laboratory Science 31(2001):211. 52 Boule, Margie. "Despite Anecdotal Evidence, Docs Say No Mad Cow Disease Here." Oregonian 16 April 1996:C01. 53 Burlington County Times 23 June 2003. http://www.phillyburbs.com/pb-dyn/ne...03-112425.html 54 Philip Yam. The Pathological Protein: Mad Cow, Chronic Wasting, and Other Deadly Prion Diseases. New York: Springer-Verlag Press, 2003 55 British Journal of Psychiatry 158 (1991):457-70. 56 Neurology 38 (1989): 76-79. 57 Neurology 39 (1989): 1103-1104. 58 New England Journal of Medicine 310 (1984): 661-663. 59 "Brain Disease May Be Commoner Than Thought -Expert." Reuter Information Service 15 May 1996. 60 http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/00001820.htm 61 http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/alzheimr.htm 62 http://www.nimh.nih.gov/publicat/numbers.cfm 63 Neurology 34 (1984): 939. 64 The Lancet 336 (1990):21. 65 Folstein, M. "The Cognitive Pattern of Familial Alzheimer's Disease." Biological Aspects of Alzheimer's Disease. Ed. R. Katzman. Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, 1983. 66 Alzheimer Disease and Associated Disorders 2 (1989): 100-109. 67 Teixeira, F., et al. "Clinico-Pathological Correlation in Dementias." Journal of Psychiatry and Neuroscience 20 (1995): 276-282. 68 British Journal of Psychiatry 158 (1991): 457-70. 69 Mahendra, B. Dementia Lancaster: MTP Press Limited, 1987: 174. 70 Archives of Neurology 44 (1987): 24-29. 71 Neurology 38 (1989): 76-79. 72 http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/diseases/cjd/bsecjdqa.htm 73 Dementia and Normal Aging, Cambridge University Press, 1994. 74 Neurology 55 (2000):1075. 75 Lancet Infectious Disease. 1 August 2003. 76 http://www.mad-cow.org/jan99_petition.html#ddd 77 http://www.centerforfoodsafety.org/li/CDCrspn1.html 78 Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report 12 April 1996: 295-303. 79 Neurology 43 (1993): A316. 80 The Wall Street Journal. 30 November 2001. 81 Beacon Journal (Akron). 5 June 2001. http://www.organicconsumers.org/madcow/CJD6501.cfm 82 New York Times 30 January 2001. 83 http://abcnews.go.com/sections/livin...rth_03130.html 84 Altman, Lawrence K. "Four States Watching for Brain Disorder." New York Times 9 April 1996. 85 http://www.medicomm.net/Consumer%20Site/tp/tp_a15.htm 86 http://www.organicconsumers.org/madcow/fact43001.cfm 87 Case Western Reserve University Magazine - Summer 2001. 88 Case Western Reserve University Magazine - Summer 2001. 89 USA Today. 7 January 1999. 90 Philip Yam. The Pathological Protein: Mad Cow, Chronic Wasting, and Other Deadly Prion Diseases. New York: Springer-Verlag Press, 2003 91 Rampton, S and J. Stauber. Mad Cow USA: Could the Nightmare Happen Here? Common Courage Press; (September 1997):149-50. Full text available free online at http://prwatch.org/books/madcow.html 92 Food Chemical News 25 March 1996: 30. 93 Food Chemical News 5 July 1993: 57-59. 94 http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/5884855.htm 95 http://organicconsumers.org/madcow/usda1204.cfm 96 http://www.prwatch.org/prwissues/1998Q1/oprah.html 97 "World Health Organization says BSE is a major threat" http://www.organicconsumers.org/madcow/BSE7601.cfm http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0107-07.htm |
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USDA vets question agency's mad cow lab
"pearl" > wrote in message news: > "Jon Leipzig" > wrote in message news: > > > Could Mad Cow Disease Already be Killing Thousands of Americans Every Year? > by Michael Greger, M.D. Pearl you're such a gem. Notice this is a question, not a statement. (could Mad Martians be causing Mad Human Disease??) >>the doctor counseled his family.[1,2,3] Peter's tragic death, October 2002, >>may have been caused by Mad Cow disease. keyword: may >>These were the first five named victims of Britain's Mad Cow epidemic. They died from what the British > Secretary of Health called the worst form of death imaginable, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, > a relentlessly progressive and invariably fatal human dementia. Well, no, they they didn't die from MC, they died from CJD, variations of which have been around long before the first MC. > It is now considered an "incontestable fact" that these human deaths in Britain were > caused by Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE), or Mad Cow disease No surprise it's considered "incontestable", no naysayers are allowed to the party. Yes it is a party (just keep focused on these evil Prions, and you'll get lotsa dough for "research") They won't fund anyone with a different point of view. > The CJD caused by infected meat has tended to strike younger people, has produced > more psychotic symptoms, and has often dragged on for a year or more. The most > defining characteristic, though, was found when their brains were sampled. The brain > pathology was vividly reminiscent of Kuru, a disease once found in a New Guinea tribe > of cannibals who ate the brains of their dead.[13] Scientists called this new form of the > disease "variant" CJD. > > Other than Charlene, a 24 year old woman now so tragically dying in Florida, who was > probably infected in Britain, there have been no reported cases of variant CJD in the > U.S.[14] Hundreds of confirmed cases of the sporadic form of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, > however, arise in the United States every year,[15] but the beef industry is quick to point > out these are cases of sporadic CJD, not the new variant known to be caused by Mad > Cow disease.[16] Of course, no one knows what causes sporadic CJD. New research, > discussed below, suggests that not hundreds but thousands of Americans die of sporadic > CJD every year, and that some of these CJD deaths may be caused by eating infected > meat after all. > > Although the fact that Mad Cow disease causes variant CJD had already been strongly > established, researchers at the University College of London nevertheless created > transgenic mice complete with "humanized" brains genetically engineered with human genes > to try to prove the link once and for all. When the researchers injected one strain of the > "humanized" mice with infected cow brains, they came down with the same brain damage > seen in human variant CJD, as expected. But when they tried this in a different strain of > transgenic "humanized" mice, those mice got sick too, but most got sick from what looked > exactly like sporadic CJD! The Mad Cow prions caused a disease that had a molecular > signature indistinguishable from sporadic CJD. To the extent that animal experiments can > simulate human results, their shocking conclusion was that eating infected meat might be > responsible for some cases of sporadic CJD in addition to the expected variant CJD. The > researchers concluded that "it is therefore possible that some patients with [what looks like] > ... sporadic CJD may have a disease arising from BSE exposure."[17] Laura Manuelidis, > section chief of surgery in the neuropathology department at Yale University comments, > "Now people are beginning to realize that because something looks like sporadic CJD > they can't necessarily conclude that it's not linked to [Mad Cow disease]..."[18] > > This is not the first time meat was linked to sporadic CJD. In 2001, a team of French > researchers found, to their complete surprise, a strain of scrapie--"mad sheep" > disease--that caused the same brain damage in mice as sporadic CJD.[19] "This means we > cannot rule out that at least some sporadic CJD may be caused by some strains of scrapie," > says team member Jean-Philippe Deslys of the French Atomic Energy Commission's medical > research laboratory.[20] > > Population studies had failed to show a link between CJD and lamb chops, but this French > research provided an explanation why. There seem to be six types of sporadic CJD and > there are more than 20 strains of scrapie. If only some sheep strains affect only some people, > studies of entire populations may not clearly show the relationship. Monkeys fed infected > sheep brains certainly come down with the disease.[21] Hundreds of "mad sheep" were found > in the U.S. in 2003.[22] Scrapie remains such a problem in the United States that the USDA > has issued a scrapie "declaration of emergency."[23] Maybe some cases of sporadic CJD in > the U.S. are caused by sheep meat as well.[24] > > Pork is also a potential source of infection. Cattle remains are still boiled down and legally > fed to pigs (as well as chickens) in this country. The FDA allows this exemption because no > "naturally occurring" porcine (pig) spongiform encephalopathy has ever been found. But > American farmers typically kill pigs at just five months of age, long before the disease is > expected to show symptoms. And, because pigs are packed so tightly together, it would > be difficult to spot neurological conditions like spongiform encephalopathies, whose most > obvious symptoms are movement and gait disturbances. We do know, however, that pigs > are susceptible to the disease--laboratory experiments show that pigs can indeed be > infected by Mad Cow brains[25]--and hundreds of thousands of downer pigs, too sick > or crippled by injury to even walk, arrive at U.S. slaughterhouses every year.[26] > > A number of epidemiological studies have suggested a link between pork consumption > and sporadic CJD. Analyzing peoples' diet histories, the development of CJD was > associated with eating roast pork, ham, hot dogs, pork chops, smoked pork, and > scrapple (a kind of pork pudding made from various hog carcass scraps). The > researchers concluded, "The present study indicated that consumption of pork as well > as its processed products (e.g., ham, scrapple) may be considered as risk factors in the > development of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease." Compared to people that didn't eat ham, > for example, those who included ham in their diet seemed ten times more likely to > develop CJD.[27] In fact, the USDA may have actually recorded an outbreak of > "mad pig" disease in New York 25 years ago, but still refuses to reopen the > investigation despite petitions from the Consumer's Union (the publishers of Consumer > Reports magazine).[28] > > Sporadic CJD has also been associated with weekly beef consumption,[29] as well > as the consumption of roast lamb,[30] veal, venison, brains in general,[31] and, in > North America, seafood.[32,33] The development of CJD has also, surprisingly, > been significantly linked to exposure to animal products in fertilizer,[34] sport fishing > and deer hunting in the U.S.,[35] and frequent exposure to leather products.[36] > > We do not know at this time whether chicken meat poses a risk. There was a preliminary > report of ostriches allegedly fed risky feed in German zoos who seemed to come down > with a spongiform encephalopathy.[37] Even if chickens and turkeys themselves are not > susceptible, though, they may become so-called "silent carriers" of Mad Cow prions and > pass them on to human consumers.[38] Dateline NBC quoted D. Carleton Gajdusek, the > first to be awarded a Nobel Prize in Medicine for his work on prion diseases,[39] as > saying, "it's got to be in the pigs as well as the cattle. It's got to be passing through the > chickens."[40] Dr. Paul Brown, medical director for the US Public Health Service, > believes that pigs and poultry could indeed be harboring Mad Cow disease and passing > it on to humans, adding that pigs are especially sensitive to the disease. "It's speculation," > he says, "but I am perfectly serious."[41] > > The recent exclusion of most cow brains, eyes, spinal cords, and intestines from the human > food supply may make beef safer, but where are those tissues going? These potentially > infectious tissues continue to go into animal feed for chickens, other poultry, pigs, and > pets (as well as being rendered into products like tallow for use in cosmetics, the safety > of which is currently under review[42]). Until the federal government stops the feeding of > slaughterhouse waste, manure, and blood to all farm animals, the safety of meat in America > cannot be guaranteed. > > The hundreds of American families stricken by sporadic CJD every year have been told > that it just occurs by random chance. Professor Collinge, the head of the University College > of London lab, noted "When you counsel those who have the classical sporadic disease, > you tell them that it arises spontaneously out of the blue. I guess we can no longer say that." > > "We are not saying that all or even most cases of sporadic CJD are as a result of BSE > exposure," Professor Collinge continued, "but some more recent cases may be-- the > incidence of sporadic CJD has shown an upward trend in the UK over the last decade... > serious consideration should be given to a proportion of this rise being BSE-related. > Switzerland, which has had a substantial BSE epidemic, has noted a sharp recent > increase in sporadic CJD."[43] In the Nineties, Switzerland had the highest rate of Mad > Cow disease in continental Europe, and their rate of sporadic CJD doubled.[44] > > We don't know exactly what's happening to the rate of CJD in this country, in part > because CJD is not an officially notifiable illness.[45] Currently only a few states have > such a requirement. Because the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) does not actively > monitor the disease on a national level,[46] a rise similar to the one in Europe could be > missed.[47] In spite of this, a number of U.S. CJD clusters have already been found. > In the largest known U.S. outbreak of sporadic cases to date,[48] five times the > expected rate was found to be associated with cheese consumption in Pennsylvania's > Lehigh Valley.[49] A striking increase in CJD over expected levels was also reported > in Florida[50] and New York (Nassau County)[51] with anecdotal reports of clusters > of deaths in Oregon[52] and New Jersey.[53] > > Perhaps particularly worrisome is the seeming increase in CJD deaths among young > people in this country. In the 18 years between 1979 and 1996, only a single case of > sporadic CJD was found in someone under 30. Whereas between 1997 and 2001, > five people under 30 died of sporadic CJD. So five young Americans dying in five > years, as opposed to one young case in the previous 18 years. The true prevalence > of CJD among any age group in this country remains a mystery, though, in part > because it is so commonly misdiagnosed.[54] > > The most frequent misdiagnosis of CJD among the elderly is Alzheimer's disease.[55] > Neither CJD nor Alzheimer's can be conclusively diagnosed without a brain biopsy,[56] > and the symptoms and pathology of both diseases overlap. There can be spongy changes > in Alzheimer's, for example, and senile Alzheimer's plaques in CJD.[57] Stanley Prusiner, > the scientist who won the Nobel Prize for his discovery of prions, speculates that > Alzheimer's may even turn out to be a prion disease as well.[58] In younger victims, > CJD is more often misdiagnosed as multiple sclerosis or as a severe viral infection.[59] > > Over the last 20 years the rates of Alzheimer's disease in the United States have > skyrocketed.[60] According to the CDC, Alzheimer's Disease is now the eighth leading > cause of death in the United States,[61] afflicting an estimated 4 million Americans.[62] > Twenty percent or more of people clinically diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease, though, > are found at autopsy not to have had Alzheimer's at all.[63] A number of autopsy studies > have shown that a few percent of Alzheimer's deaths may in fact be CJD. Given the new > research showing that infected beef may be responsible for some sporadic CJD, thousands > of Americans may already be dying because of Mad Cow disease every year.[64] > > Nobel Laureate Gajdusek, for example, estimates that 1% of people showing up in > Alzheimer clinics actually have CJD.[65] At Yale, out of a series of 46 patients clinically > diagnosed with Alzheimer's, six were proven to have CJD at autopsy.[66] In another study > of brain biopsies, out of a dozen patients diagnosed with Alzheimer's according to > established criteria, three of them were actually dying from CJD.[67] An informal survey > of neuropathologists registered a suspicion that CJD accounts for 2-12% of all dementias > in general.[68] Two autopsy studies showed a CJD rate among dementia deaths of about > 3%.[69,70] A third study, at the University of Pennsylvania, showed that 5% of patients > diagnosed with dementia had CJD.[71] Although only a few hundred cases of sporadic > CJD are officially reported in the U.S. annually,[72] hundreds of thousands of Americans > die with dementia every year.[73] Thousands of these deaths may actually be from CJD > caused by eating infected meat. > > The incubation period for human spongiform encephalopathies such as CJD can be > decades.[74] This means it can be years between eating infected meat and getting > diagnosed with the death sentence of CJD. Although only about 150 people have so far > been diagnosed with variant CJD worldwide, it will be many years before the final death > toll is known. In the United States, an unknown number of animals are infected with Mad > Cow disease, causing an unknown number of human deaths from CJD. The U.S. should > immediately begin testing all cows destined for human consumption, as is done in Japan, > should stop feeding slaughterhouse waste to all farm animals > (see http://organicconsumers.org/madcow/GregerBSE.cfm), and should immediately > enact an active national surveillance program for CJD.[75] > > Five years ago this week, the Center for Food Safety, the Humane Farming Association, > the Center for Media & Democracy, and ten families of CJD victims petitioned the FDA > and the CDC to immediately enact a national CJD monitoring system, including the > mandatory reporting of CJD in all 50 states.[76] The petition was denied.[77] The CDC > argued that their passive surveillance system tracking death certificate diagnoses was > adequate. Their analysis of death certificates in three states and two cities, for example, > showed an overall stable and typical one in a million CJD incidence rate from 1979 to > 1993.[78] But CJD is so often misdiagnosed, and autopsies are so infrequently done, > that this system may not provide an accurate assessment.[79] > > In 1997, the CDC set up the National Prion Disease Pathology Surveillance Center > at Case Western Reserve University to analyze brain tissue from CJD victims in the > U.S. in hopes of tracking any new developments. In Europe, surveillance centers have > been seeing most, if not all, cases of CJD. The U.S. center sees less than half. "I'm > very unhappy with the numbers," laments Pierluigi Gambetti , the director of the Center. > "The British and Germans politely smile when they see we examine 30% or 40% of > the cases," he says. "They know unless you examine 80% or more, you are not in > touch."[80] "The chance of losing an important case is high."[81] > > One problem is that many doctors don't even know the Center exists. And neither the > CDC nor the Center are evidently authorized to reach out to them directly to bolster > surveillance efforts, because it's currently up to each state individually to determine > how--or even whether--they will track the disease. In Europe, in contrast, the national > centers work directly with each affected family and their physicians.[82] In the U.S., > most CJD cases--even the confirmed ones--seem to just fall through the cracks. In fact, > based on the autopsy studies at Yale and elsewhere, it seems most CJD cases in the > U.S. aren't even picked up in the first place. > > Autopsy rates have dropped in the U.S. from 50% in the Sixties to less than 10% at > present.[83] Although one reason autopsies are rarely performed on atypical dementia > cases is that medical professionals are afraid of catching the disease,[84] the primary > reason for the decline in autopsy rates in general appears to be financial. There is > currently no direct reimbursement to doctors or hospitals for doing autopsies, which > often forces the family to absorb the cost of transporting the body to an autopsy center > and having the brain samples taken, a tab that can run upwards of $1500.[85] > > Another problem is that the National Prion Disease Pathology Surveillance Center itself > remains underfunded. Paul Brown, medical director for the National Institutes of Health, > has described the Center's budget as "pitiful," complaining that "there isn't any budget > for CJD surveillance."[86] To adequately survey America's 290 million residents, "you > need a lot of money." UK CJD expert Robert Will explains, "There was a CJD meeting > of families in America in which... [the CDC] got attacked fairly vigorously because there > wasn't proper surveillance. You could only do proper surveillance if you have adequate > resources."[87] "I compare this to the early days of AIDS," says protein chemist Shu > Chen, who directs the Center's lab, "when no one wanted to deal with the crisis."[88] > > Andrew Kimbrell, the director of the Center for Food Safety, a D.C.-based public > interest group, writes, "Given what we know now, it is unconscionable that the CDC is > not strictly monitoring these diseases."[89] Given the presence of Mad Cow disease in > the U.S., we need to immediately enact uniform active CJD surveillance on a national > level, provide adequate funding not only for autopsies but also for the shipment of > bodies, and require mandatory reporting of the disease in all 50 states. In Britain, even > feline spongiform encephalopathy, the cat version of Mad Cow disease, is an officially > notifiable illness. "No one has looked for CJD systematically in the U.S.," notes NIH > medical director Paul Brown. "Ever."[90] > > The animal agriculture industries continue to risk public safety, and the government seems > to protect the industries' narrow business interests more than it protects its own citizens. > Internal USDA documents retrieved through the Freedom of Information Act show that > our government did indeed consider a number of precautionary measures as far back as > 1991 to protect the American public from Mad Cow disease. According to one such > document, however, the USDA explained that the "disadvantage" of these measures was > that "the cost to the livestock and rendering industries would be substantial."[91] > > Plant sources of protein for farm animals can cost up to 30% more than cattle remains.[92] > The Cattlemen's Association admitted a decade ago that animal agribusiness could indeed > find economically feasible alternatives to feeding slaughterhouse waste to other animals, > but that the they did not want to set a precedent of being ruled by "activists."[93] > > Is it a coincidence that USDA Secretary Veneman chose Dale Moore, former chief > lobbyist for the National Cattlemen's Beef Association, as her chief of staff?[94] Or > Alison Harrison, former director of public relations for the Cattlemen's Association, as > her official spokeswoman?[95] Or that one of the new Mad Cow committee > appointees is William Hueston, who was paid by the beef industry to testify against > Oprah Winfrey in hopes of convicting her of beef "disparagement"?[96] After a similar > conflict of interest unfolded in Britain, their entire Ministry of Agriculture was dissolved > and an independent Food Safety Agency was created, whose sole responsibility is to > protect the public's health. Until we learn from Britain's lesson, and until the USDA > stops treating this as a PR problem to be managed instead of a serious global threat, > [97] millions of Americans will remain at risk. > > Michael Greger, M.D., has been the Chief BSE Investigator for Farm Sanctuary since > 1993 and the Mad Cow Coordinator for the Organic Consumers Association since 2001. > > For periodic updates on the Mad Cow crisis send a blank email to > > > REFERENCES: > > (Full text of specific articles available by emailing ) > > 1 Spokesman Review. 22 September 2003 > http://www.organicconsumers.org/madcow/putnam92203.cfm > > 2 HealthDayNews. 26 September 2003 http://www.healthday.com/view.cfm?id=515265 > > 3 Reuters. 27 December 2003 http://www.organicconsumers.org/madcow/cjd122703.cfm > > 4 Moyes, Jojo. "Depression Leads to Painful Death." Independent 21 March 1996: 1. > > 5 "Victims' Families Cry Cover-Up by Protecting Beef Industry, Government Cost Lives, > They Say." Miami Herald 26 March 1996: 7A. > > 6 PA News 30 November 1998. > > 7 http://meatout.org/ > > 8 Brown, Paul. "Beef Crisis." Guardian 26 March 1996a: 7. > > 9 British Medical Journal 322(2001):841. > > 10 Journal of Infectious Diseases 161 (1990): 467-472. > > 11 Bentor, Yinon. Chemical Element.com - Lead. Jun. 3, 2003. > http://www.chemicalelements.com/elements/pb.html > > 12 British Medical Journal 322(2001):841. > > 13 Bulletin of the World Health Organization 70 (1992): 183- 190. > > 14 http://www.organicconsumers.org/madcow/florida1304.cfm > > 15 Journal of the American Medical Association, November 8, 2000; 284(18). > > 16 http://www.bseinfo.org/dsp/dsplocati...ocationId=1267 > > 17 "BSE prions propagate as either variant CJD-like or sporadic CJD-like prion > strains in transgenic mice expressing human prion protein." EMBO Journal, Vol. 21, > No. 23, 6358-6368, 2002. http://emboj.oupjournals.org/cgi/con...ull/21/23/6358 > > 18 United Press International. 29 December 2003. > http://organicconsumers.org/madcow/CJD122903.cfm > > 19 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 98(2001):4142. > > 20 "BSE may cause more CJD cases than thought New Scientist 28 November 2002. > > 21 Journal of Infectious Disease 142(1980):205-8. > > 22 http://www.aphis.usda.gov/vs/nahps/s...ly-report.html > > 23 March 17, 2000 Federal Register (Volume 65,:Page 14521). > http://www.mad-cow.org/00/apr00scrapie.html > > 24 "Sheep consumption: a possible source of spongiform encephalopathy in humans." > Neuroepidemiology. 4(1985):240-9. > > 25 The Veterinary Record 127(1990):338. > > 26 National Hog Farmer. 15 February 2002. > > 27 American Journal of Epidemiology Vol. 122, No. 3 (1985), pgs. 443-451. > > 28 http://www.consumersunion.org/food/psecpi301.htm > > 29 Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease surveillance in the UK: sixth annual report 1997. Edinburgh, > Scotland: National CJD Surveillance Unit, 1998. > > 30 American Journal of Epidemiology Vol. 122, No. 3 (1985), pgs. 443-451. > > 31 Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease surveillance in the UK: sixth annual report 1997. Edinburgh, > Scotland: National CJD Surveillance Unit, 1998. > > 32 Quarterly Journal of Medicine 93(2000):617. > > 33 American Journal of Epidemiology 98( 1973):381-394. > > 34 Lancet 1998; 351:1081-5. > > 35 American Journal of Epidemiology 122(1985)443-451. > > 36 Lancet 1998; 351:1081-5. > > 37 Schoon, H.A., Brunckhorst, D. and Pohlenz J. (1991) Spongiform Encephalopathy > in a Red-Necked Ostrich, Tierartzliche Praxis, 19, 263-5 > > 38 Journal of Virology 75(21):10073-89 (2001). > > 39 http://www.nobel.se/medicine/laureat...k-lecture.html > > 40 NBC Dateline 14 March 1997. > > 41 Pearce, Fred. "BSE May Lurk in Pigs and Chickens." New Scientist 6 April 1996: 5. > > 42 http://organicconsumers.org/madcow/tallow123103.cfm > > 43 "BSE May Have Caused Some Cases Of CJD As Well As vCJD." The Guardian. > 29 November 2002. > > 44 Lancet 360(2002):139-141. > > 45 Neuroepidemiology 14 (1995): 174-181. > > 46 http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/diseases/cjd/bsecjdqa.htm > > 47 Altman, Lawrence K. "U.S. Officials Confident That Mad Cow Disease of Britain Has > Not Occurred Here." New York Times 27 March 1996: 12A. > > 48 Flannery, Mary. "Twelve - Fifteen 'Mad Cow' Victims a Year in Area." Philadelphia > Daily News 26 March 1996: 03. > > 49 Neurology 43 (1993): A316. > > 50 Neurology 44 (1994): A260. > > 51 Annals of Clinical and Laboratory Science 31(2001):211. > > 52 Boule, Margie. "Despite Anecdotal Evidence, Docs Say No Mad Cow Disease Here." > Oregonian 16 April 1996:C01. > > 53 Burlington County Times 23 June 2003. > http://www.phillyburbs.com/pb-dyn/ne...03-112425.html > > 54 Philip Yam. The Pathological Protein: Mad Cow, Chronic Wasting, and Other Deadly > Prion Diseases. New York: Springer-Verlag Press, 2003 > > 55 British Journal of Psychiatry 158 (1991):457-70. > > 56 Neurology 38 (1989): 76-79. > > 57 Neurology 39 (1989): 1103-1104. > > 58 New England Journal of Medicine 310 (1984): 661-663. > > 59 "Brain Disease May Be Commoner Than Thought -Expert." Reuter Information Service > 15 May 1996. > > 60 http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/00001820.htm > > 61 http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/alzheimr.htm > > 62 http://www.nimh.nih.gov/publicat/numbers.cfm > > 63 Neurology 34 (1984): 939. > > 64 The Lancet 336 (1990):21. > > 65 Folstein, M. "The Cognitive Pattern of Familial Alzheimer's Disease." Biological > Aspects of Alzheimer's Disease. Ed. R. Katzman. Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, 1983. > > 66 Alzheimer Disease and Associated Disorders 2 (1989): 100-109. > > 67 Teixeira, F., et al. "Clinico-Pathological Correlation in Dementias." Journal of > Psychiatry and Neuroscience 20 (1995): 276-282. > > 68 British Journal of Psychiatry 158 (1991): 457-70. > > 69 Mahendra, B. Dementia Lancaster: MTP Press Limited, 1987: 174. > > 70 Archives of Neurology 44 (1987): 24-29. > > 71 Neurology 38 (1989): 76-79. > > 72 http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/diseases/cjd/bsecjdqa.htm > > 73 Dementia and Normal Aging, Cambridge University Press, 1994. > > 74 Neurology 55 (2000):1075. > > 75 Lancet Infectious Disease. 1 August 2003. > > 76 http://www.mad-cow.org/jan99_petition.html#ddd > > 77 http://www.centerforfoodsafety.org/li/CDCrspn1.html > > 78 Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report 12 April 1996: 295-303. > > 79 Neurology 43 (1993): A316. > > 80 The Wall Street Journal. 30 November 2001. > > 81 Beacon Journal (Akron). 5 June 2001. http://www.organicconsumers.org/madcow/CJD6501.cfm > > 82 New York Times 30 January 2001. > > 83 http://abcnews.go.com/sections/livin...arth_03130.htm l > > 84 Altman, Lawrence K. "Four States Watching for Brain Disorder." New York Times 9 April 1996. > > 85 http://www.medicomm.net/Consumer%20Site/tp/tp_a15.htm > > 86 http://www.organicconsumers.org/madcow/fact43001.cfm > > 87 Case Western Reserve University Magazine - Summer 2001. > > 88 Case Western Reserve University Magazine - Summer 2001. > > 89 USA Today. 7 January 1999. > > 90 Philip Yam. The Pathological Protein: Mad Cow, Chronic Wasting, and Other Deadly > Prion Diseases. New York: Springer-Verlag Press, 2003 > > 91 Rampton, S and J. Stauber. Mad Cow USA: Could the Nightmare Happen Here? > Common Courage Press; (September 1997):149-50. Full text available free online at > http://prwatch.org/books/madcow.html > > 92 Food Chemical News 25 March 1996: 30. > > 93 Food Chemical News 5 July 1993: 57-59. > > 94 http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/5884855.htm > > 95 http://organicconsumers.org/madcow/usda1204.cfm > > 96 http://www.prwatch.org/prwissues/1998Q1/oprah.html > > 97 "World Health Organization says BSE is a major threat" > http://www.organicconsumers.org/madcow/BSE7601.cfm > > http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0107-07.htm > > > > > > > > > |
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USDA vets question agency's mad cow lab
"Jon Leipzig" > wrote in message ... > > "pearl" > wrote in message news: > > "Jon Leipzig" > wrote in message news: > > > > > > Could Mad Cow Disease Already be Killing Thousands of Americans Every > Year? > > by Michael Greger, M.D. > (MAJOR snip - took about a full minute) Talk about beating a dead horse.......er cow. 'Nuff already, people! Jeesh! kili |
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USDA vets question agency's mad cow lab
"kilikini" > wrote in message > > "Jon Leipzig" > wrote in message > ... > > > > "pearl" > wrote in message news: > > > "Jon Leipzig" > wrote in message news: > > > > > > > > > Could Mad Cow Disease Already be Killing Thousands of Americans Every > > Year? > > > by Michael Greger, M.D. > > > > (MAJOR snip - took about a full minute) Sorry, I accidently clicked _Send, then Outhouse Xpress gave me the option to send later. Didn't know they would automatically send it the next time logging in to OE. I was just getting warmed up. (mericfully) all my Mad Cow articles are on my crashed HDrive.) Might want to negotiate a refund with your ISP. > Talk about beating a dead horse.......er cow. 'Nuff already, people! If it's "nuff" already, why'd you bother responding at all?? Imo, their own vets questioning the Mad C lab, is a New horse, hopefully it won't die soon.. |
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USDA vets question agency's mad cow lab
"Jon Leipzig" > wrote in message ...
> > "pearl" > wrote in message news: > > "Jon Leipzig" > wrote in message news: > > > > > > Could Mad Cow Disease Already be Killing Thousands of Americans Every Year? > > by Michael Greger, M.D. > > Pearl you're such a gem. That's sweet of you. > Notice this is a question, not a statement. Yes. A question which is thoroughly addressed in the article. > (could Mad Martians be causing Mad Human Disease??) There is no reason to think it. No supporting evidence. <restore> October 2001, 34-year-old Washington State native Peter Putnam started losing his mind. One month he was delivering a keynote business address, the next he couldn't form a complete sentence. Once athletic, soon he couldn't walk. Then he couldn't eat. After a brain biopsy showed it was Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, his doctor could no longer offer any hope. "Just take him home and love him," > >>the doctor counseled his family.[1,2,3] Peter's tragic death, October 2002, > >>may have been caused by Mad Cow disease. > > keyword: may No. Keywords: '34-year-old', and 'a brain biopsy showed it was Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease'. -You should be aware that a key feature of vCJD is that it can strike down young people. > >These were the first five named victims of Britain's Mad Cow epidemic. > >They died from what the British > >Secretary of Health called the worst form of death imaginable, > >Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, > >a relentlessly progressive and invariably fatal human dementia. > > Well, no, they they didn't die from MC, It doesn't say that. Read it again. > they died from CJD, That is what it says. > variations of which have been around long before the first MC. That is correct. 'TSEs are a mysterious class of diseases that are called by different names in different species. For instance some identified types of TSE are Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (CJD), and its specific strain, new variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (nvCJD) which is a human disease apparently caused by the same agent which causes bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) or British "mad cow" disease, Fatal Familial Insomnia (FFA), Gerstmann-Straussler-Scheinker Syndrome (GSS), scrapie in sheep, transmissible mink encephalopathy (TME) in mink in North America, and chronic wasting disease (CWD) in deer and elk in North America. There may be different strains of TSE within species, and new strains may be produced when TSEs move from one animal species to another. The common characteristics of TSE diseases are that they are invariably fatal. ' http://www.icta.org/legal/madcow.htm > > It is now considered an "incontestable fact" that these human deaths in Britain were > > caused by Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE), or Mad Cow disease > > No surprise it's considered "incontestable", no naysayers are allowed to the > party. > Yes it is a party (just keep focused on these evil Prions, and you'll get > lotsa dough for "research") > They won't fund anyone with a different point of view. Sounds like you have an axe to grind. Have you applied for research funds? What is your hypothesis, Jon? Based on what? <long snip- took all of 3 seconds (just highlight and hit return, kilikini.)> |
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USDA vets question agency's mad cow lab
"Jon Leipzig" > wrote in message ...
> > "kilikini" > wrote in message > > > > "Jon Leipzig" > wrote in message > > ... > > > > > > "pearl" > wrote in message news: > > > > "Jon Leipzig" > wrote in message news: > > > > > > > > > > > > Could Mad Cow Disease Already be Killing Thousands of Americans Every Year? > > > > by Michael Greger, M.D. > > > > > > > (MAJOR snip - took about a full minute) > > Sorry, I accidently clicked _Send, then Outhouse Xpress gave me the option > to send later. > Didn't know they would automatically send it the next time logging in to OE. > I was just getting warmed up. (mericfully) all my Mad Cow articles are on > my crashed HDrive.) > > Might want to negotiate a refund with your ISP. You could always hit Reply again..  .> > Talk about beating a dead horse.......er cow. 'Nuff already, people! > > If it's "nuff" already, why'd you bother responding at all?? I can understand that people much rather this all just go away, but it simply doesn't work that way, - and ignoring the emerging facts can only allow the situation to worsen - the industry banks on the apathy and indifference of a large segment of the public. > Imo, their own vets questioning the Mad C lab, is a New horse, hopefully it > won't die soon.. That I certainly agree with. |
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USDA vets question agency's mad cow lab
"pearl" > wrote in message ... > > No surprise it's considered "incontestable", no naysayers are allowed to the > > party. > > Yes it is a party (just keep focused on these evil Prions, and you'll get > > lotsa dough for "research") > > They won't fund anyone with a different point of view. > > Sounds like you have an axe to grind. Have you applied for > research funds? What is your hypothesis, Jon? Based on what? Lol! No, I don't do research. Besides, I'm disabled with TLS (terminal lethargy syndrome) . If yer so interested in MC, I'm surprised you haven't heard of the (possible) link to the use of organphospates on cows to control the warble fly. IIRC, it either depletes or inhibits the utilization of copper, allowing for an excess of manganese to enter the brain. Supposedly manganese is the culprit in creating "rogue" prions. (this is in ref to the MC outbreak in the UK, a dozen yrs ago(?) ) Probably adding fuel to the fire, was the manganese enriched milk replacement formula as a growth enhancer. While they use these OP's in the US, in the UK they used skin-penetrating form, gel, I think. Also it was in a more concentrated dose than the US version. Trivia: the only other country to have a major outbreak at about the same time was Switzerland......coincidentally, the only country to use the same type/strength of OP's as in the UK. The British organic farmer/amateur scientist working on this OP theory had his house set afire twice (supposedly), also his lawyer & vet were killed in auto "accidents". His vet discovered he could dramatically relieve the symptoms of MC in 30 minutes by administering the antidotes to nerve gas. (these OP's are derivatives of mustard gas) Bet you'll never see a demo of this on TV in the US. Natch, this begs the Q of mad deer/elk/moose. IIRC, some of these "mad" areas are known to have copper deficient soil. (Just recalling tidbits from memory, till I amass a new arsenal of refs or gain access to my HD ) Then I wondered about the "mad humans" in New Guinea. I think kuru is similar to CJD. Don't know if there's a manganese connection or not, but I discovered the Japanese, back in the 40's, were injecting the natives with contaminated sheep brains as part of their bio-warfare program. Some of these tribes were practicing cannibalism long before this kuru surfaced in about 1950 (?). trivia: Some of these male-dominated tribes were sexist pigs. They fed the human brains to women and/or kids, knowing some would go mad. |
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USDA vets question agency's mad cow lab
"Jon Leipzig" > wrote in message ...
> > "pearl" > wrote in message > ... <..> > If yer so interested in MC, I'm surprised you haven't heard of the > (possible) link to the use of organphospates on cows to control the warble > fly. <ahem> http://tinyurl.com/2mozq http://tinyurl.com/3yjod 'Organophosphates severely interfere with normal nervous system function, impeding the breakdown and recycling of acetylcholine, one of the main carriers of excitatory nerve impulses; its uncontrolled accumulation at the site of nerve synapses can force the nervous systems of both insects and humans into a virtually uncontrollable state of overdrive. ..' http://www.organicconsumers.org/corp...nwar120902.cfm OP poisoning symptoms- tension, anxiety, headaches, slurred speech, tremor, convulsions, paralysis, and even death. If death occurs, it is caused by asphyxia resulting from respiratory failure. > IIRC, it either depletes or inhibits the utilization of copper, allowing for > an excess of manganese to enter the brain. Supposedly manganese is the > culprit in creating "rogue" prions. I hear you. '... Cambridge scientist David R. Brown is hot on the trail. His recent research has shown that the prion proteins linked to BSE can bond destructively with manganese found in animal feeds or mineral licks. His latest, as yet unpublished work has found a tenfold increase in the metal manganese in brains of CJD victims. All this is fully consistent with the Purdey hypothesis. These manganese-tipped prions could be the principal cause of the neurological degeneration seen in BSE. But manganese is only the bullet -- organophosphate insecticide is the high-velocity gun. It fires manganese into the brain by depleting copper which the manganese then replaces. Purdey says the manganese-tipped prions set off lethal chain reactions that neurologically burn through the animal. .. A number of researchers have found that organophosphate (OP) in systemic warble fly insecticide can deform the prion molecule, rendering it ineffective at buffering free radical effects in the body. Worse still, the prion is then partial to bond with manganese and become a 'rogue' prion. A chain reaction whereby rogue prions turn others to rogues also, can explain the bovine spongiform disease mechanism. Brown showed how prion protein bonds benignly with copper, but lethally with manganese. Even natural variations in relative environmental availability of manganese versus copper can trigger prion degradation. Chickens notoriously excrete most of the supplements fed to them -- including manganese. And their manganese-rich excreta have been blended into cattle feed in the UK. ... Purdey has built evidence from around the world that explains and predicts the incidence in humans and animals: a cluster of CJD in Slovakia, Eastern Europe -- around a manganese plant; Rocky Mountain deer with Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD), who were found to be eating pine needles rich in manganese; the futile slaughter of sheep in Cyprus -- only for BSE to reemerge within years. ....' Organophosphates Implicated In Mad Cow Disease http://www.cqs.com/opmadcow.htm > (this is in ref to the MC outbreak in the UK, a dozen yrs ago(?) ) Yes. > Probably adding fuel to the fire, was the manganese enriched milk > replacement formula as a growth enhancer. And given in mineral supplements, and in the chicken excrement in feed (!). > While they use these OP's in the US, in the UK they used skin-penetrating > form, gel, I think. > Also it was in a more concentrated dose than the US version. Didn't Purdey think that 'Phosmet', in particular, was implicated? > Trivia: the only other country to have a major outbreak at about the same > time was Switzerland......coincidentally, the only country to use the same > type/strength of OP's as in the UK. Right. > The British organic farmer/amateur scientist working on this OP theory had > his house set afire twice (supposedly), also his lawyer & vet were killed in > auto "accidents". His vet discovered he could dramatically relieve the > symptoms of MC in 30 minutes by administering the antidotes to nerve gas. > (these OP's are derivatives of mustard gas) But the damage is done! >Bet you'll never see a demo of this on TV in the US. Nor Ireland. : > Natch, this begs the Q of mad deer/elk/moose. IIRC, some of these "mad" > areas are known to have copper deficient soil. Manganese rich perhaps. However that couldn't just suddenly come about. '..The most troubling explanation for CWD's appearance came from neither state agency but from veteran agricultural and environmental writer Mike Irwin, freelancing in Madison's Capital Times. Irwin's groundbreaking reporting linked CWD to a group of landowners in western Dane County who, in 1990, began a concentrated effort at deer management in order to raise "super" bucks. The landowners, who controlled 12 abutting square-mile sections in the northwestern part of the town of Vermont, agreed to give young bucks six years to grow so they'd develop the imposing antlers and muscular bodies that would get them into the record books. Then they began long-term feeding of nutritional supplements to wild deer. Their effort succeeded: Between 1990 and 2000, Dane County recorded the third-highest number of trophy bucks in North America. Up until August 1997, when the FDA, reacting to Britain's mad cow epidemic, banned all ruminant-to-ruminant feeding (sheep, cattle, goats, elk, deer, antelope and buffalo) in the United States, Midwestern rendering plants routinely processed Wisconsin deer carcasses into meat and bone meal that went into feed mill products fed back to ruminants, including deer. (Cows, sheep and deer can still legally be processed into bone and blood meal feed for pigs, pets and chickens; then they can be rendered and fed back to cows, deer and other ruminants.) The feeding practice may have amplified the disease in the same way feeding spread TSEs among the Fore people, Britain's cows and the Wisconsin mink, something further suggested by the fact that 11 of the first 18 cases of CWD found in Wisconsin came from the "super buck" area. The connection is especially vexing because "that kind of feeding has been going on all over the state," says author Stauber, "more evidence that CWD is spread all over Wisconsin." The DNR did ban feeding of deer statewide once CWD was discovered, but by then, much of the damage had been done. ..............' http://www.milwaukeemagazine.com/122002/cwd.html > (Just recalling tidbits from memory, till I amass a new arsenal of refs or > gain access to my HD ) Okay. The thing is, as Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathies _are_ transmissible, doesn't that prove that there is some kind of infectious agent involved, (even though other factors such as organophosphate poisoning and excess manganese could certainly be contributory)? > Then I wondered about the "mad humans" in New Guinea. I think kuru is > similar to CJD. Don't know if there's a manganese connection or not, > but I discovered the Japanese, back in the 40's, were injecting the natives > with contaminated sheep brains as part of their bio-warfare program. Some of > these tribes were practicing cannibalism long before this kuru surfaced in > about 1950 (?). Here's a recent piece about that; Mad Cow Disease/Kuru/CJD In The Fore Tribe 1-2-4 Before and during World War II, at the infamous Camp 731 in Manchuria, the Japanese military contaminated prisoners of war with certain disease agents. They also established a research camp in New Guinea in 1942. There they experimented upon the Fore Indian tribe and inoculated them with a minced-up version of the brains of diseased sheep containing the visna virus which causes "mad cow disease" or Creutzfeldt÷Jakob disease. About five or six years later, after the Japanese had been driven out, the poor people of the Fore tribe developed what they called kuru, which was their word for "wasting", and they began to shake, lose their appetites and die. The autopsies revealed that their brains had literally turned to mush. They had contracted "mad cow disease" from the Japanese experiments. When World War II ended, Dr Ishii Shiro÷the medical doctor who was commissioned as a General in the Japanese Army so he could take command of Japans biological warfare development, testing and deployment÷was captured. He was given the choice of a job with the United States Army or execution as a war criminal. Not surprisingly, Dr Ishii Shiro chose to work with the US military to demonstrate how the Japanese had created mad cow disease in the Fore Indian tribe. In 1957, when the disease was beginning to blossom in full among the Fore people, Dr Carleton <http://mail.yahoo.com/config/login?/gajdusek.html> Gajdusek of the US National Institutes of Health headed to New Guinea to determine how the minced-up brains of the visna-infected sheep affected them. He spent a couple of years there, studying the Fore people, and wrote an extensive report. He won the Nobel Prize for "discovering" kuru disease in the Fore tribe. http://www.whale.to/m/scott7.html>http://www.whale.to/m/scott7.html > trivia: Some of these male-dominated tribes were sexist pigs. They fed the > human brains to women and/or kids, knowing some would go mad. That's crazy. |
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USDA vets question agency's mad cow lab
"pearl" > wrote in messag > <ahem> > http://tinyurl.com/2mozq > http://tinyurl.com/3yjod OIC...you've been mad about cows for a good while.... > http://www.organicconsumers.org/corp...nwar120902.cfm One of the sites I lost....thanx > > While they use these OP's in the US, in the UK they used skin-penetrating > > form, gel, I think. > > Also it was in a more concentrated dose than the US version. > > Didn't Purdey think that 'Phosmet', in particular, was implicated? Yup. Don't know if it goes under a diff- name in the US, but in the UK it was about 4x the strength of the powdered form in USA. > > The British organic farmer/amateur scientist working on this OP theory had > > his house set afire twice (supposedly), also his lawyer & vet were killed in > > auto "accidents". His vet discovered he could dramatically relieve the > > symptoms of MC in 30 minutes by administering the antidotes to nerve gas. > > (these OP's are derivatives of mustard gas) > > But the damage is done! I wasn't sure if these "accidents" were true, but I just came across new accounts from the UK verifying these events. > >Bet you'll never see a demo of this on TV in the US. > > Nor Ireland. : >>that 11 of the first 18 cases of CWD found in Wisconsin came from the "super buck" area. >>http://www.milwaukeemagazine.com/122002/cwd.html Darn , I was raised in Wisc., never heard of this b-4.. > The thing is, as Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathies _are_ > transmissible, doesn't that prove that there is some kind of infectious > agent involved, (even though other factors such as organophosphate > poisoning and excess manganese could certainly be contributory)? other than these "rogue" prions, I don't think so. If it's something in the feed, why have there been no outbreaks in all those countries importing the same feed from the UK?? > Here's a recent piece about that; > Mad Cow Disease/Kuru/CJD > In The Fore Tribe 1-2-4 > http://www.whale.to/m/scott7.html>http://www.whale.to/m/scott7.html Solves that riddle, I guess. Interesting, I recall refs to "manganese madness" in areas of volcano activity and/or manganese mines in various parts of the globe. Might find it again, while looking for something else.... |
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