The Insanity of Mad Cow Madness

(The Marin County Coastal Post, December 25,2003)

Jim Scanlon

It is commonly believed that the practice of rendering dead sheep into
powdered protein supplements for cattle led to the development of BSE.
The use of processed animal carcasses in cattle feed was banned in the
UK in 1988 and in the US in 1996.

"Jim Scanlon" <j.scanlon@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:j.scanlon-B93752.22114206012004@netnews.comcast.net...

It is commonly believed that the practice of rendering dead sheep into
powdered protein supplements for cattle led to the development of BSE.
The use of processed animal carcasses in cattle feed was banned in the
UK in 1988 and in the US in 1996.


it might be commonly believed but is equally probably not true. From memory
US research showed that injecting scrapie infective material into calves
gave the calves scrapie, not BSE

Jim Webster

it might be commonly believed but is equally probably not true. From memory
US research showed that injecting scrapie infective material into calves
gave the calves scrapie, not BSE

Jim Webster

And the end result of scrapie is different from BSE, or CJD, or CWD in what
way?

"Jim Webster" <Jim@feeswerve.spam.co.uk> wrote in message news:<btgcmf$umk$2@news7.svr.pol.co.uk>...
"Jim Scanlon" <j.scanlon@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:j.scanlon-B93752.22114206012004@netnews.comcast.net...

It is commonly believed that the practice of rendering dead sheep into
powdered protein supplements for cattle led to the development of BSE.
The use of processed animal carcasses in cattle feed was banned in the
UK in 1988 and in the US in 1996.

it might be commonly believed but is equally probably not true. From memory
US research showed that injecting scrapie infective material into calves
gave the calves scrapie, not BSE

And the end result of scrapie is different from BSE, or CJD, or CWD in what way?
As long as the suckers keep buying the burgers all will be well, eh Jim?

"Jim Webster" <Jim@feeswerve.spam.co.uk> wrote in message
news:<btgcmf$umk$2@news7.svr.pol.co.uk>...
"Jim Scanlon" <j.scanlon@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:j.scanlon-B93752.22114206012004@netnews.comcast.net...

It is commonly believed that the practice of rendering dead sheep into
powdered protein supplements for cattle led to the development of BSE.
The use of processed animal carcasses in cattle feed was banned in the
UK in 1988 and in the US in 1996.


it might be commonly believed but is equally probably not true. From
memory
US research showed that injecting scrapie infective material into calves
gave the calves scrapie, not BSE

Jim Webster






And the end result of scrapie is different from BSE, or CJD, or CWD in
what way?

As long as the suckers keep buying the burgers all will be well, eh Jim?

.

On 7 Jan 2004 19:14:45 -0800, banmilk@hotmail.com (Ron) wrote:

have no grounds for making a judgement that it is less likely than
not, that the origin of BSE was scrapie agent rendered into cattle
feed.

"Torsten Brinch" <iaotb@inet.uni2.dk> wrote in message
news:sa3qvvcu0v8q0rkpud0suunum7iliurb3f@4ax.com...
On 7 Jan 2004 19:14:45 -0800, banmilk@hotmail.com (Ron) wrote:


Taken alone or in combination that means we
have no grounds for making a judgement that it is less likely than
not, that the origin of BSE was scrapie agent rendered into cattle
feed.

so when you cut the personal insult, it looks as if Torsten either doesn't
know either, or holds to the old fashioned belief that scrapie is the cause

Pity he lets bile clutter his perception, there was a time when he was
actually reasonable

Jim Webster


He should pay a bit more attention to publications within his own

"Torsten Brinch" <iaotb@inet.uni2.dk> wrote in message
news:sa3qvvcu0v8q0rkpud0suunum7iliurb3f@4ax.com...

Taken alone or in combination that means we
have no grounds for making a judgement that it is less likely than
not, that the origin of BSE was scrapie agent rendered into cattle
feed.

He should pay a bit more attention to publications within his own
country put out by his government through DEFRA's web pages.

They've quite an extensive area dealing with TSEs and don't seem
to give air to *his* conclusions.

On Thu, 8 Jan 2004 09:38:53 -0000, "Jim Webster"
Jim@feeswerve.spam.co.uk> wrote:



He should pay a bit more attention to publications within his own
country put out by his government through DEFRA's web pages. They've
quite an extensive area dealing with TSEs and don't seem to give air
to *his* conclusions.

But perhaps he feels that is all part of some gummint cover up.

boron

On Thu, 08 Jan 2004 22:11:12 -0500, Boron Elgar
boron_elgarspamola@hotmail.com> wrote:
"Torsten Brinch" <iaotb@inet.uni2.dk> wrote in message
news:sa3qvvcu0v8q0rkpud0suunum7iliurb3f@4ax.com...

Taken alone or in combination that means we
have no grounds for making a judgement that it is less likely than
not, that the origin of BSE was scrapie agent rendered into cattle
feed.

He should pay a bit more attention to publications within his own
country put out by his government through DEFRA's web pages.

But 'mam -- I am infinitely more German than British...
:-)

They've quite an extensive area dealing with TSEs and don't seem
to give air to *his* conclusions.

Just back off, Boron, will you, what I wrote here on the question of
scrapie/not scrapie origin of BSE is bl**dy identical with the
conclusion reached in the most recent UK government commissioned
report on the issue from the DEFRA site. Here:
http://www.defra.gov.uk/animalh/bse/bseorigin.pdf

The Insanity of Mad Cow Madness

(The Marin County Coastal Post, December 25,2003)

Jim Scanlon




One sick mad cow in Canada last May prompted the US, and other countries
to immediately ban Canadian beef. Since May, the Canadian loss to
agriculture has been estimated at $2.5 billion. Now, one sick ³downer²
cow in Yakima Washington testing positive for bovine spongiform
encephalopathy (BSE), mad cow disease, provoked a similar, but much
larger uproar. Within minutes of the announcement, country after
country, as if waiting anxiously to act, banned US beef imports, stock
prices of meat packers and processors dropped, and urgent nervous,
pathetic, appeals from governmental officials began to "reassure² the
meat eating public that the US food supply was safe. President Bush
issued an official statement urging Americans to continue, as he was ---
eating beef!

What is so startling and awe inspiring is that the American people,
mostly oblivious to the corporate take over of their food supply and
farming over the last few decades, and the resultant environmental
destruction and threat this poses to public health, is instantly
horrified by the infinitesimally small and remote prospect that
³eating beef² which might have a few molecules of BSE, might result in
crippling, spastic dementia and death. Day after day, page after
newspaper page, endless reports on radio and television.

A nation with a government in almost total denial regarding
environmental pollution and climate change, resistant to the most
minimal measures to slow down that degradation, aggressively and
coercively resistant to any attempts to regulate big business or
restricting pesticides or hormones in the food supply, is suddenly
horrified and paralyzed by global public hysteria and the godlike
invisible punitive hand of the [stock] market

Consider for just a minute what this hysteria is all about.

Over a twenty year period approximately 145 people in the United
Kingdom have died or been diagnosed with a new strain of Creutzfeldt
Jacob Disease (CJD) a rare but common, degenerative brain disease well
known worldwide, with an incidence of 1 to 1.5 per million inhabitants.
The new variant of CJD, usually referred to as vCJD or nvCJD, is
basically confined to the United Kingdom, which, with a population of
approximately 56 million, would be expected to have had a naturally
occurring death rate of between 1,000 and 2,000 victims in twenty years.

Diagnosis of both varieties is often difficult due to the small number
of cases, confusion with Alzheimer's Disease and cases that may have
been ignored and, or, masked as suicidal depression. It seems safe to
say that , whatever the rate, the diseases are both under reported.

In the UK, as of November 2002, the cumulative total was 129 cases of
vCJD, listed as 93 confirmed, 24 probable and 12 strongly suspected ---
but not yet confirmed cases. In December 2003, the cumulative number of
diagnosed cases is variously given as 140, 143 and 147. Even
considering a potentially long latency, with billions of exposures from
50 some odd million people ³eating beef² daily over a twenty year
period, 147 cases would suggest an extremely low rate of infection and
--- at the very least --- greater specificity regarding what kind of
³beef² eaten --- or perhaps --- some other manner of exposure to the
infectious agent such as medicines, cosmetics, transplanted tissue and
so on.

The difference between the closely related strains of vCJD and CJD
seems real, each producing slightly different effects on the brain and
affecting different age groups: the average age for vCJD is said to be
age 29, CJD, 60. However the time from the first appearance of symptoms
until death is months, for both.

In 1977, G. Carlton Gaydusek was awarded the Noble Prize for his work
explaining Kuru, another transmissible spongiform encephalopathy very
similar to CJD which was epidemic among the Fore people in New Guinea
during the 1950s and 1960s. The disease disappeared without scientific
or medical intervention when Australian Colonial authorities banned a
religious funerary practice of the natives which involved dismembering
the bodies of honored relatives and eating them in a ritual communion
meal. (Regulators take note!)

This native practice is commonly referred to as cannibalism, which it
is, but, Gaydusek did not stress the ³eating², but the ³preparation²
which explained the greater incidence of the disease among women who,
in preparation of the dead body, might expose a scratch to nerve
tissue, or rub an eye. Children who were present might do the same.

Exposure through ³preparation² and not ³eating² would seem to be
supported by confirmed transmission of disease though medical
procedures. Transplantation of brain tissue (dura membrane), corneal
transplants and contaminated brain probes have been implicated

Since neurosurgeons have been infected, one would think that farmers,
meat packers and butchers would be vulnerable, but that, apparently, is
not the case.

Between 1957 and 1980 approximately 2000 patients, mostly children, were
injected with an extract of Human Growth Hormone (hGH) made from
pituitary glands taken from cadavers. The treatment was effective in
promoting growth, but unfortunately the treatment promoted infectious
CJD particles. The exact number of deaths is not known, but believed to
be greater than 147. Some 220 court cases were filed for negligence as
of 1996. (The production of Human Growth Hormone with cadaver tissue was
abandoned in 1985.

Here is how Nature, (25 April 1996) the International Journal of Science
described the process:

³Over the period when hGH was extracted from cadavers, nearly one
million pituitary glands were used in the United Kingdom. Mortuary
attendants removed the glands and at one stage 'received a nominal fee
of twenty pence per gland'. This system was later changed and mortuary
attendants were paid a flat rate for the extra work involved in removing
the glands.²

It is something of a mystery how neurosurgeons could be infected, but
mortuary assistants sawing and hacking open a million skulls were not.

The scientific literature contains another strange, but apparently
little examined episode of an epidemic of a neurological disease on the
Pacific Island of Guam attributed to the consumption of the fruit of the
false sego palm during the Japanese occupation during World War II.

Since the 1700s sheep have been known to mysteriously contract a
degenerative brain disease called scrapie. Although transmission to
other species including man was not known, it was suspected. Infection
could be induced only by direct inoculation of infected brain tissue
directly into a healthy brain of another animal.

It is commonly believed that the practice of rendering dead sheep into
powdered protein supplements for cattle led to the development of BSE.
The use of processed animal carcasses in cattle feed was banned in the
UK in 1988 and in the US in 1996.

The BSE epidemic in the UK peaked in 1992 when 138,000 cases were
diagnosed. Overall some 3,500,000 cattle were slaughtered --- an
enormous waste!. In 2002 the number of cases was down to 755 in the UK
and 291 elsewhere. Over all those years, with all those infected cattle,
and all those roast beef sandwiches and hamburgers consumed, there were
apparently 147 diagnosed cases of vCJD -- horrible tragedies for the
victims and their families, but hardly a public health threat.

Although most bans on UK beef have now been lifted, the cost to
agriculture and society cannot really be imagined. Neither can the
effect the disaster has had on the European Union.

Although the US has banned the use of recycled cow carcasses in cattle
feed, it is allowable in chicken and pig feed. Paradoxically chicken and
pork are recommended to replace beef. The recent spate of articles on
beef production has illuminated a few of the odd practices involved in
factory farming. Cattle blood is processed as a feed supplement for
calves, thus seeming to evade the cattle to cattle food chain. (Could
this product have been fed to human children or dieters? One wonders,
how would one know?.) And when chickens are fed feed with ground cattle
protein, the residue swept up from the floor, along with chicken
excrement, can be fed to cattle.

One of the big winners in this affair would appear to be Dr. Stanley
Pruisner of the University of California at San Francisco, who won the
Noble Prize for his work on ³prions² the putative infectious agent in
transmissible encephalopathies. There was great resistance among many
scientists to the idea that an infectious protein molecule, without DNA
or RNA could reproduce itself, adapt and evolve into different strains
thereby causing disease. Even after he won the Noble Prize, Pruisner
was viciously attacked in the New Yorker magazine of all places.

It is still difficult for many people to conceive how a ³prion², an
infectious protein, can cross the blood-brain barrier and how it can
pass through the human digestive system which is very effective at
processes proteins, something the vegetarian cow, with multiple
stomachs, does not normally do.

Dr Pruisner, who rigorously avoided contact with the media (in the late
1980s he never returned, or took, telephone calls from the Coastal Post)
was featured on the front page of the New York Times just before
Christmas. He claimed the US Department of Agriculture ignored his pleas
to expand its testing program for BSE. Only after he spoke to Karl Rove
the personal political advisor to, and fund raiser for, President Bush,
did Pruisner get a hearing with agriculture.

He seems to have lost his shyness of the press now that he has developed
and received approval for a diagnostic test for BSE, which could net him
and UCSF a fortune in royalties. Quite naturally, the stock price of the
company that markets the test kit jumped. 

The US Dept. of Agriculture tested 20,526 of the 35,000,000 cattle
slaughtered in the US last year, and now it seems there will be intense
competition between scientists and their institutions for acceptance of
their BSE test, just as there was between scientists and their
institutions over royalties for the AIDS test almost twenty years ago.

A big jump in the number of tests would help reassure the meat eating
public that beef rancher George W Bush, who is up for election in 2004 ,
is concerned about their health. It would also be good for the bio
technology industry, thus providing an American happy ending.

Genetically modified tofu anyone?
--

##### Hi, Jim, now that I know you better...
Anyhow, you have the connections. The result of testing of the 450
calves might not be made public if the tests include refined
musculature and EM. Canada "talked" about testing all slaughter cows
but apparently decided it was impractical or some such excuse.
Actually, I agree it is impractical, but because I prefer the
quarrantine of these heavily polluted areas like Mabton and Leduc from
production of any human "fodder", whether cows or other food products
except some few crops which might be found that do not uptake and
concentrate manganese. Same song. Easy for folks to learn. Best
wishes for '04. Del Crow #####
On January 6, USDA euthanized the entire bull calf herd from Sunnyside,
Washington. Approximately 450 animals were euthanized according to American
Veterinary Medical Association humane guidelines. USDA officials secured the
animal carcasses overnight and disposed of the carcasses by landfill on January
7. None of the carcasses entered the human food supply chain or were rendered.
=====================

On Thu, 08 Jan 2004 22:11:12 -0500, Boron Elgar
boron_elgarspamola@hotmail.com> wrote:
"Torsten Brinch" <iaotb@inet.uni2.dk> wrote in message
news:sa3qvvcu0v8q0rkpud0suunum7iliurb3f@4ax.com...

Taken alone or in combination that means we
have no grounds for making a judgement that it is less likely than
not, that the origin of BSE was scrapie agent rendered into cattle
feed.

He should pay a bit more attention to publications within his own
country put out by his government through DEFRA's web pages.

But 'mam -- I am infinitely more German than British...
:-)

They've quite an extensive area dealing with TSEs and don't seem
to give air to *his* conclusions.

Just back off, Boron, will you, what I wrote here on the question of
scrapie/not scrapie origin of BSE is bl**dy identical with the
conclusion reached in the most recent UK government commissioned
report on the issue from the DEFRA site. Here:
http://www.defra.gov.uk/animalh/bse/bseorigin.pdf

(I bet there must be topics on which I would be no match for you,
but BSE is just not one of them. Perhaps time you face it.)