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Re: Mad Cow disease and hay mites



Oz wrote:
> You must have come in late. There have been plenty of references
> quoted, and I don't mean 'The Observer', but refereed scientific ones.
> Since 'hay mites' is a completely new one to me, perhaps you would like
> to tell us the paper it referred to, I mean the scientific refereed 
>one?

It is actually a letter from last Saturday's Lancet (Wisniewski HM, 
Sigudarson S, Rubenstein R, Kascsak RJ and Carp RI (1996) Mites as 
vectors for scrapie. Lancet 347:1114). Hay mites (lepidoglyphus 
destructor, acarus farris, tyrophagus longior, cheyletus eruditis, tydeus 
interruptus and tarsonemus spp) were frozen, homogenised and injected 
intracerebrally and intraperitoneally into Compton white mice. Of 71 
mice, 10 were scrapie-positive by the time the letter was written. The 
research was carried out on Icelandic sheep pasture.

The editorial comment quotes "these data suggest that the scrapie agent 
replicates in mites and that mites may represent a self-sustaining 
reservoir for scrapie-like agents" and adds "if sheep are returned to a 
pasture that has not been used for as long as 3 years... they still 
become infected with the disease" and "these tiny creatures may be 
contributing to the continuation of BSE despite efforts to control the 
disease".

Best wishes, Stuart Neilson
http://http2.brunel.ac.uk:8080/~hssrsdn/bse.htm - BSE and TSE references, 
and a couple of longish articles.



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