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Re: Mad Cow disease, BSE; Justice is served.
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Subject: Re: Mad Cow disease, BSE; Justice is served.
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From: Oz <Oz@upthorpe.demon.co.uk>
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Date: Sat, 13 Apr 1996 23:30:32 +0100
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Article: 11861 of alt.sustainable.agriculture
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Distribution: world
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Newsgroups: sci.environment, uk.environment, alt.sustainable.agriculture, sci.agriculture, scot.environment, misc.consumers, alt.politics.greens, alt.org.earth-first, alt.save.the.earth
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Organization: Oz
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References: <DozrJ0.IwM@news.tcd.ie> <4jqig3$na2@ricrdc1.rdc.ricoh.co.jp> <4jsufs$lqb@main.freenet.hamilton.on.ca> <4k1hph$t4c@pyrnova.mis.pyramid.com> <jscanlon-0404961731500001@0.0.0.0> <828735794snz@daflight.demon.co.uk> <aquilla.1179445902C@emba-news.emba.uvm.edu> <829421081snz@daflight.demon.co.uk>
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Reply-To: Oz@upthorpe.demon.co.uk
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Xref: newz.oit.unc.edu sci.environment:91080 alt.sustainable.agriculture:11861 sci.agriculture:10468 misc.consumers:122625 alt.politics.greens:16054 alt.org.earth-first:3945 alt.save.the.earth:18369
In article <829421081snz@daflight.demon.co.uk>, Hugh Easton
<hugh@daflight.demon.co.uk> writes
>
>
>The latest issue of New Scientist magazine (13 April) has some more
>disturbing information about mad cow disease. For years the British
>Government has been claiming that BSE was caused by the inclusion of sheep
>carcasses infected with scrapie in cattle feed. Because scrapie does not
>transmit to humans, it was claimed that BSE was unlikely to affect people
>either.
No, you have a poor memory, think back to 87/88. At the time BSE was
first noticed (effectively 1987) it was said that because it appeared to
have jumped the species barrier (you know about the species barrier?) it
wasn't just another TE, but something new and perhaps dangerous. If it
was a TE of cattle, as now seems likely, then there would be much less
to worry about. Regular readers to this group will know that I have been
suggesting this was the most likely scenario for some years, despite
horror stories to the contrary. Looks like I was right.
So it makes it less likely that BSE is infectious to humans.
However this would not be in keeping with the usual scaremongering of
New Scientist, which as a reader you are probably already aware.
>The epidemic may in fact have originated with the inclusion of a single
>"spontaneous" case of BSE in cattle feed in the 70s.
I would have said much more likely the early 80's going by the number of
cases reported by year that I have recently posted, wouldn't you?
> Because cattle carcasses were also rendered into animal feed, the
> agent would have been repeatedly recycled through cows, building
> up for years at levels too low to cause symptoms before emerging
> as an epidemic. If this version of events is correct, the line taken
> by ministers on the risks to human health was misguided from the
> start, says Rohwer [an expert on spongiform encephalopathies at the
> Veterans Affairs Medical Centre in Baltimore, Maryland]. "If it is
> not scrapie in cows, that blows the whole basis of the public health
> policy out of the window."
Which just goes to show how he doesn't understand the problem. He has of
course been complaining loudly because the UK won't fund his research,
but prefers to fund research in the UK which is every bit as advanced
(probably more so) than his more recent offerings. Poor man.
>So there you have it. A disease about which very little is known in our
>food, which has so far infected almost every species of mammal exposed
>to it, including primates.
Please read the 300 odd research papers, there is now plenty known. I
won't go through them again as I have undoubtedly bored this group with
them already. Not only is a great deal known but if you think that
injecting massive doses of the most highly infective material you can
find directly into the brain as normal, then you ought not to travel in
a car, ever. Fortunately all even potentially infective material (CNS
and more) is excluded from the food chain just on the off chance, but I
expect you already knew that.
>The incubation period of this type of disease
>is known to be extremely long, particularly when it is being transmitted
>to a different species - in people, it could be anything up to 40 years
The generally accepted band is 5 to 15 years. Still, if it makes you
happier why not quote 100 years? You will of course not that on YOUR
figures we should be 16+ years (from 70's) into any infective danger
area so we really should have seen significant cases already if BSE was
infective to humans. Fortunately we find that the cases of CJD in humans
in UK has not changed, so it looks good and I hope it stays that way,
don't you?
>before the bulk of those infected develop symptoms (if we are susceptible
>to infection). Maybe humans will turn out to be particularly resistant,
>but that is not a chance that I am prepared to take.
Well, since muscle and in fact all parts of BSE infected cattle except
for the CNS has been shown NOT to be infective, even when injected
directly into the brains of specially selected suceptible inbred mouse
strains, you can now, presumably return to eating British beef. No?
Perhaps Tracy had a point?
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'Oz "When I knew little, all was certain. The more I learnt,
the less sure I was. Is this the uncertainty principle?"
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