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Ron
Posted: Thu Jan 08, 2004 3:43 pm
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from http://www.rense.com




Could Mad Cow Disease Already
Be Killing Thousands Of
Americans Every Year?
By Michael Greger, M.D.
1-8-4


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
DrGregerMadCowUpdates-subscribe@lists.riseup.net



REFERENCES:

(Full text of specific articles available by emailing
article-request@DrGreger.org)

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38 Journal of Virology 75(21):10073-89 (2001).

39 http://www.nobel.se/medicine/laureates/1976/gajdusek-lecture.html

40 NBC Dateline 14 March 1997.

41 Pearce, Fred. "BSE May Lurk in Pigs and Chickens." New Scientist 6
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53 Burlington County Times 23 June 2003.
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54 Philip Yam. The Pathological Protein: Mad Cow, Chronic Wasting, and
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55 British Journal of Psychiatry 158 (1991): 457-70.

56 Neurology 38 (1989): 76-79.

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58 New England Journal of Medicine 310 (1984): 661-663.

59 "Brain Disease May Be Commoner Than Thought -Expert." Reuter
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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.

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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.
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82 New York Times 30 January 2001.

83 http://abcnews.go.com/sections/living/Healthology/HS_autopsydearth_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

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Here? Common Courage Press; (September 1997):149-50. Full text
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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
FAIR USE NOTICE
Jim Webster
Posted: Thu Jan 08, 2004 3:56 pm
Guest
still no

Jim Webster
Torsten Brinch
Posted: Thu Jan 08, 2004 4:07 pm
Guest
On 8 Jan 2004 12:43:46 -0800, banmilk@hotmail.com (Ron) wrote:

Quote:
Could Mad Cow Disease Already Be Killing Thousands Of Americans Every Year?

Could that possibility be in the same likelihood bracket as Could
Americans have Killed Hundreds of Thousands Iraqis last year?
Boron Elgar
Posted: Thu Jan 08, 2004 4:30 pm
Guest
On 8 Jan 2004 12:43:46 -0800, banmilk@hotmail.com (Ron) wrote:

Quote:

Rense is an unreliable source of scientific information.

The CDC is cited within the rense article offered by the OP (sadly,
the link the rense article provided did not work properly, but maybe
that is part of the problem with the whole article). Much of what is
said at the BSE/CJD consumer pages at the CDC contradict what is said
in the rense article. If you are looking for reliable information,
read the CDC report.

http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/diseases/cjd/bse_cjd_qa.htm

Boron

Quoted in full:
**************
What is bovine spongiform encephalopathy?
Bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) is a progressive neurological
disorder of cattle that results from infection by an unconventional
transmissible agent.

Through the end of November 2003, more than 183,000 cases of BSE were
confirmed in the United Kingdom alone in more than 35,000 herds.
Regularly updated numbers of reported BSE cases, by country, are
available on the website of the Office International Des Epizooties
at: http://www.oie.int/eng/info/en_esb.htm.

The BSE epidemic in the United Kingdom peaked in January 1993 at
almost 1,000 new cases per week. The outbreak may have resulted from
the feeding of scrapie-containing sheep meat-and-bone meal to cattle.
There is strong evidence and general agreement that the outbreak was
amplified by feeding rendered bovine meat-and-bone meal to young
calves.

The nature of the transmissible agent is unknown. Currently, the most
accepted theory is that the agent is a modified form of a normal cell
surface component known as prion protein. The pathogenic form of the
protein is both less soluble and more resistant to enzyme degradation
than the normal form.

Is BSE occurring in the United States?
On December 23, 2003, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA)
announced a presumptive diagnosis of bovine spongiform encephalopathy
(BSE, or "mad cow" disease) in an adult Holstein cow from Washington
State. Samples were taken from the cow on December 9 as part of USDA's
BSE surveillance program. The BSE diagnosis was made on December 22
and 23 by histopathology and immunohistochemical testing at the
National Veterinary Services Laboratory, Ames, Iowa. The diagnosis was
confirmed by an international reference laboratory in Weybridge,
England, on December 25. Preliminary trace-back based on an ear-tag
identification number suggests that the BSE-infected cow was imported
into the United States from Canada in August 2001.

Is BSE a foodborne hazard in the United States?
Strong evidence indicates that BSE has been transmitted to humans
primarily in the United Kingdom, causing a variant form of
Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD). In the United Kingdom, where over 1
million cattle may have been infected with BSE, a substantial species
barrier appears to protect humans from widespread illness. As of
December 1, 2003, a total of 153 vCJD cases had been reported
worldwide; of these, 143 cases had occurred in the United Kingdom. The
risk to human health from BSE in the United States is extremely low.

Is there any monitoring of the incidence of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease
in the United States?
Yes. The possibility that BSE can spread to humans has focused
increased attention on the desirability of enhancing national
surveillance for Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) in the United States.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) monitors the
trends and current incidence of CJD in the United States by analyzing
death certificate information from U.S. multiple cause-of-death data,
compiled by the National Center for Health Statistics, CDC. A summary
of these data was published in the Journal of the American Medical
Association on November 8, 2000 (Volume 284, No. 18, pp. 2322-3). and
in Clinics of Laboratory Medicine in December 2002 (Volume 22, pp.
849-62).

The average annual CJD death rate in the United States has remained
relatively stable at about one case per million population per year.
In addition, CJD deaths in persons aged <30 years in the United States
remain extremely rare (<1 case per 100 million per year). In contrast,
in the United Kingdom, over half of the patients who died with variant
CJD were in this young age group.

What is the variant form of CJD that the experts in the United Kingdom
believe might be related to the BSE outbreak in cattle?
In contrast to the classic form of CJD, the variant form in the United
Kingdom predominantly affects younger persons (median age at death
around 29 years) and has atypical clinical features. These atypical
features include prominent psychiatric or sensory symptoms at the time
of clinical presentation or early in the course of the illness,
delayed onset of neurologic abnormalities, duration of illness of at
least 6 months, and a diffusely abnormal non-diagnostic
electroencephalogram.

The characteristic neuropathologic profile of variant CJD includes, in
both the cerebellum and cerebrum, numerous kuru-type amyloid plaques
surrounded by vacuoles and prion protein (PrP) accumulation at high
concentration indicated by immunohistochemical analysis.

Recently published data indicate that the epidemic of variant CJD in
the United Kingdom may have already reached a peak. A listing of
monthly updated numbers of variant CJD cases in the United Kingdom is
available at: http://www.doh.gov.uk/cjd/cjd_stat.htm.

Is there evidence directly linking this newly recognized variant of
CJD to BSE exposure?
There is strong epidemiologic and laboratory evidence for a causal
association between variant CJD and BSE. The absence of confirmed
cases of variant CJD in other geographic areas free of BSE supports a
causal association.

In addition, the interval between the most likely period for the
initial extended exposure of the population to potentially
BSE-contaminated food (1984-1986) and onset of initial variant CJD
cases (1994-1996) is consistent with known incubation periods for CJD.

An experimental study reported in June 1996 showed that three
cynomologus macaque monkeys inoculated with brain tissue obtained from
cattle with BSE had clinical and neuropathological features strikingly
similar to those of variant CJD (Nature 1996;381:743-4).

A study published in 1996 indicated that a Western blot analysis of
infecting prions obtained from 10 variant CJD patients and
BSE-infected animals had similar molecular characteristics that were
distinct from prions obtained from patients with other types of CJD
(Nature 1996;383:685-90).

An experimental study involving inoculation of a panel of inbred mice
with the agents causing BSE and variant CJD substantially increased
the strength of the scientific evidence for a causal association
between variant CJD and BSE (Nature 1997;389:498-501). In this study,
groups of inbred mice and a group of cross-bred mice inoculated with
brain homogenates from variant CJD cases were reported to have had
latency periods and lesion profiles consistent with the BSE pattern.

The latency period, neuropathology, and disease-causing PrP isoforms
in transgenic mice expressing bovine PrP that were inoculated with
variant CJD, BSE, and scrapie brain extracts provided additional
evidence supporting the link between BSE and variant CJD (Proc Natl
Acad Sci 1999;96:15137-42).

Has CDC initiated increased surveillance efforts to determine whether
the newly recognized variant of CJD occurs in the United States?
Yes. In addition to the ongoing review of national CJD mortality data,
CDC has conducted active CJD surveillance in its four established
Emerging Infections Program areas (Minnesota, Oregon, Connecticut, and
the San Francisco Bay area, California) and in a metropolitan Atlanta
site.

Additionally, with the support of the Council of State and Territorial
Epidemiologists, CDC conducts follow-up review of clinical and
neuropathology records of CJD decedents aged <55 years who are
identified through the national mortality data analysis.

CDC, in collaboration with the American Association of
Neuropathologists, established the National Prion Disease Pathology
Surveillance Center at Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland,
Ohio in 1996-1997. This pathology center provides free,
state-of-the-art diagnostic services to U.S. physicians. It also helps
to monitor the possible occurrence of emerging forms of prion
diseases, such as variant CJD, in the United States. For more
information about the center visit its website at:
http://www.cjdsurveillance.com.

In 2002, CDC reported the occurrence of variant CJD in a 22-year-old
Florida resident who was born in and grew up in the United Kingdom.
Information about this patient is available at:
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5141a3.htm.

Is BSE a foodborne hazard for travelers to Europe?
The current risk for infection with the BSE agent among travelers to
Europe is extremely small, if it exists at all. Information describing
this risk is available in the document titled "Bovine Spongiform
Encephalopathy and Variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease" available on the
CDC website at http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/diseases/cjd/bse_cjd.htm.

************************************



Rense article snipped
Don Phillipson
Posted: Thu Jan 08, 2004 5:54 pm
Guest
"Torsten Brinch" <iaotb@inet.uni2.dk> wrote in message
news:6ihrvvcio5lhmdjab661i7mpf5rju2bv5h@4ax.com...

Quote:
On 8 Jan 2004 12:43:46 -0800, banmilk@hotmail.com (Ron) wrote:

Could Mad Cow Disease Already Be Killing Thousands Of Americans Every
Year?

Could that possibility be in the same likelihood bracket as Could
Americans have Killed Hundreds of Thousands Iraqis last year?

There is a difference.
1. We know prions cause CJD and we know that US and
Canadian regulations permit prion-carrying beef parts in
chicken feed and permit chicken parts in beef feed.
(Both are prohibited in Europe.)
2. We do not know what caused the USA to kill any
Iraqis last year. (Well, the official reasons turned out
to be unfactual, but no others have been suggested.)

--
Don Phillipson
Carlsbad Springs (Ottawa, Canada)
Boron Elgar
Posted: Thu Jan 08, 2004 6:09 pm
Guest
On 8 Jan 2004 12:43:46 -0800, banmilk@hotmail.com (Ron) wrote:

Quote:

Rense is an unreliable source of scientific information.

The CDC is cited within the rense article offered by the OP (sadly,
the link the rense article provided did not work properly, but maybe
that is part of the problem with the whole article). Much of what is
said at the BSE/CJD consumer pages at the CDC contradict what is said
in the rense article. If you are looking for reliable information,
read the CDC report.

http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/diseases/cjd/bse_cjd_qa.htm

Boron

Quoted in full:
**************
What is bovine spongiform encephalopathy?
Bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) is a progressive neurological
disorder of cattle that results from infection by an unconventional
transmissible agent.

Through the end of November 2003, more than 183,000 cases of BSE were
confirmed in the United Kingdom alone in more than 35,000 herds.
Regularly updated numbers of reported BSE cases, by country, are
available on the website of the Office International Des Epizooties
at: http://www.oie.int/eng/info/en_esb.htm.

The BSE epidemic in the United Kingdom peaked in January 1993 at
almost 1,000 new cases per week. The outbreak may have resulted from
the feeding of scrapie-containing sheep meat-and-bone meal to cattle.
There is strong evidence and general agreement that the outbreak was
amplified by feeding rendered bovine meat-and-bone meal to young
calves.

The nature of the transmissible agent is unknown. Currently, the most
accepted theory is that the agent is a modified form of a normal cell
surface component known as prion protein. The pathogenic form of the
protein is both less soluble and more resistant to enzyme degradation
than the normal form.

Is BSE occurring in the United States?
On December 23, 2003, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA)
announced a presumptive diagnosis of bovine spongiform encephalopathy
(BSE, or "mad cow" disease) in an adult Holstein cow from Washington
State. Samples were taken from the cow on December 9 as part of USDA's
BSE surveillance program. The BSE diagnosis was made on December 22
and 23 by histopathology and immunohistochemical testing at the
National Veterinary Services Laboratory, Ames, Iowa. The diagnosis was
confirmed by an international reference laboratory in Weybridge,
England, on December 25. Preliminary trace-back based on an ear-tag
identification number suggests that the BSE-infected cow was imported
into the United States from Canada in August 2001.

Is BSE a foodborne hazard in the United States?
Strong evidence indicates that BSE has been transmitted to humans
primarily in the United Kingdom, causing a variant form of
Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD). In the United Kingdom, where over 1
million cattle may have been infected with BSE, a substantial species
barrier appears to protect humans from widespread illness. As of
December 1, 2003, a total of 153 vCJD cases had been reported
worldwide; of these, 143 cases had occurred in the United Kingdom. The
risk to human health from BSE in the United States is extremely low.

Is there any monitoring of the incidence of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease
in the United States?
Yes. The possibility that BSE can spread to humans has focused
increased attention on the desirability of enhancing national
surveillance for Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) in the United States.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) monitors the
trends and current incidence of CJD in the United States by analyzing
death certificate information from U.S. multiple cause-of-death data,
compiled by the National Center for Health Statistics, CDC. A summary
of these data was published in the Journal of the American Medical
Association on November 8, 2000 (Volume 284, No. 18, pp. 2322-3). and
in Clinics of Laboratory Medicine in December 2002 (Volume 22, pp.
849-62).

The average annual CJD death rate in the United States has remained
relatively stable at about one case per million population per year.
In addition, CJD deaths in persons aged <30 years in the United States
remain extremely rare (<1 case per 100 million per year). In contrast,
in the United Kingdom, over half of the patients who died with variant
CJD were in this young age group.

What is the variant form of CJD that the experts in the United Kingdom
believe might be related to the BSE outbreak in cattle?
In contrast to the classic form of CJD, the variant form in the United
Kingdom predominantly affects younger persons (median age at death
around 29 years) and has atypical clinical features. These atypical
features include prominent psychiatric or sensory symptoms at the time
of clinical presentation or early in the course of the illness,
delayed onset of neurologic abnormalities, duration of illness of at
least 6 months, and a diffusely abnormal non-diagnostic
electroencephalogram.

The characteristic neuropathologic profile of variant CJD includes, in
both the cerebellum and cerebrum, numerous kuru-type amyloid plaques
surrounded by vacuoles and prion protein (PrP) accumulation at high
concentration indicated by immunohistochemical analysis.

Recently published data indicate that the epidemic of variant CJD in
the United Kingdom may have already reached a peak. A listing of
monthly updated numbers of variant CJD cases in the United Kingdom is
available at: http://www.doh.gov.uk/cjd/cjd_stat.htm.

Is there evidence directly linking this newly recognized variant of
CJD to BSE exposure?
There is strong epidemiologic and laboratory evidence for a causal
association between variant CJD and BSE. The absence of confirmed
cases of variant CJD in other geographic areas free of BSE supports a
causal association.

In addition, the interval between the most likely period for the
initial extended exposure of the population to potentially
BSE-contaminated food (1984-1986) and onset of initial variant CJD
cases (1994-1996) is consistent with known incubation periods for CJD.

An experimental study reported in June 1996 showed that three
cynomologus macaque monkeys inoculated with brain tissue obtained from
cattle with BSE had clinical and neuropathological features strikingly
similar to those of variant CJD (Nature 1996;381:743-4).

A study published in 1996 indicated that a Western blot analysis of
infecting prions obtained from 10 variant CJD patients and
BSE-infected animals had similar molecular characteristics that were
distinct from prions obtained from patients with other types of CJD
(Nature 1996;383:685-90).

An experimental study involving inoculation of a panel of inbred mice
with the agents causing BSE and variant CJD substantially increased
the strength of the scientific evidence for a causal association
between variant CJD and BSE (Nature 1997;389:498-501). In this study,
groups of inbred mice and a group of cross-bred mice inoculated with
brain homogenates from variant CJD cases were reported to have had
latency periods and lesion profiles consistent with the BSE pattern.

The latency period, neuropathology, and disease-causing PrP isoforms
in transgenic mice expressing bovine PrP that were inoculated with
variant CJD, BSE, and scrapie brain extracts provided additional
evidence supporting the link between BSE and variant CJD (Proc Natl
Acad Sci 1999;96:15137-42).

Has CDC initiated increased surveillance efforts to determine whether
the newly recognized variant of CJD occurs in the United States?
Yes. In addition to the ongoing review of national CJD mortality data,
CDC has conducted active CJD surveillance in its four established
Emerging Infections Program areas (Minnesota, Oregon, Connecticut, and
the San Francisco Bay area, California) and in a metropolitan Atlanta
site.

Additionally, with the support of the Council of State and Territorial
Epidemiologists, CDC conducts follow-up review of clinical and
neuropathology records of CJD decedents aged <55 years who are
identified through the national mortality data analysis.

CDC, in collaboration with the American Association of
Neuropathologists, established the National Prion Disease Pathology
Surveillance Center at Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland,
Ohio in 1996-1997. This pathology center provides free,
state-of-the-art diagnostic services to U.S. physicians. It also helps
to monitor the possible occurrence of emerging forms of prion
diseases, such as variant CJD, in the United States. For more
information about the center visit its website at:
http://www.cjdsurveillance.com.

In 2002, CDC reported the occurrence of variant CJD in a 22-year-old
Florida resident who was born in and grew up in the United Kingdom.
Information about this patient is available at:
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5141a3.htm.

Is BSE a foodborne hazard for travelers to Europe?
The current risk for infection with the BSE agent among travelers to
Europe is extremely small, if it exists at all. Information describing
this risk is available in the document titled "Bovine Spongiform
Encephalopathy and Variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease" available on the
CDC website at http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/diseases/cjd/bse_cjd.htm.

************************************



Rense article snipped
Torsten Brinch
Posted: Thu Jan 08, 2004 10:04 pm
Guest
On Thu, 8 Jan 2004 17:54:01 -0500, ey925@freenet.carleton.ca (Don
Phillipson) wrote:

Quote:
"Torsten Brinch" <iaotb@inet.uni2.dk> wrote in message
news:6ihrvvcio5lhmdjab661i7mpf5rju2bv5h@4ax.com...

On 8 Jan 2004 12:43:46 -0800, banmilk@hotmail.com (Ron) wrote:

Could Mad Cow Disease Already Be Killing Thousands Of
Americans Every Year?

Could that possibility be in the same likelihood bracket as Could
Americans have Killed Hundreds of Thousands Iraqis last year?

There is a difference.
1. We know prions cause CJD and we know that US and
Canadian regulations permit prion-carrying beef parts in
chicken feed and permit chicken parts in beef feed.
(Both are prohibited in Europe.)
2. We do not know what caused the USA to kill any
Iraqis last year. (Well, the official reasons turned out
to be unfactual, but no others have been suggested.)

The hypothesis has been raised from the Iraqi side, that
Americans are suffering from Mad Dog Disease (kinda
like rabies I imagine, once bitten, now runs wildly biting
back with a foamy mouth ). If so, recent poll numbers
would indicate a prevalence of the disease in the US
population of about 50%.
Jim Scanlon
Posted: Thu Jan 08, 2004 10:45 pm
Guest
In article <436a5d81.0401081243.5361955d@posting.google.com>,
banmilk@hotmail.com (Ron) wrote:

I am greatly impressed with the hard work, organization and detail so
obvious in this article, and grateful for the references, but I feel Dr.
Greger's article is fatally weakened by his uncritical acceptance of
the basic proposition that human exposure to the source of CJD/vCJD is
from "eating meat".

Transmission of CJD easily occurs through direct innoculation of tissue
from brain to brain during medical proceedures. As reported in Nature 25
April 1996, there was an outbreak of CJD cases in the UK during the
1980s from experimental treatments of children with human growth hormone
manufactured from pituitary glands derived from cadavers. i.e.
manufacturing medicines.

It is not clear where all the cases occurred but the high court opened
an inquiry on 8 of the 17 cases of CJD contracted in the UK (3 were
reported in the USA) All but one, at that time had died. There were
reportedly 200 other court cases pending at that time. This would
suggest that, quite conservatively, the number of CJD cases among
"young people" in 1996 was substantially greater than the 143, 145, 147
or 150 cases of vCJD diagnosed over the last 20 years purportedly from
"eating beef"

I do not ever recall reading newspaper articles or hearing warnings
about the safety of hormone treatments, or the safety of medical
treatments, although I do recall reading a highly intellectual non
specific article in the New York Review of Books by Ivan Illich on
iatrogenic (medically induced) illnesses. Doesn't it appear more
reasonable to assume that the current human cases are connected with the
mecical-industrial-stock market complex?

It would not seem to be in the interest of the medical profession to
warn the public that they are in great danger when in a doctor's office
or in a hospital, although it is common to be warned about eating too
much and eating fast food or eating and drinking/

When reading "sporadic" or "spontaneous" one should keep in mind that
both words mean "Doctors don't know what caused this"

It seems to me that with virus, viral particles and abstractions named
"prions" we are on the margin between "life' and "inanimate matter", a
prime subject for long term, basic research probably impossible due to
public hysteria.

For my part I am astounded, humbled and fearful whenever I think of the
uproar over "mad cow" and the quiet acceptance of the progressive
militarization of our global society, especially in my own country.

Jim Scanlon

Quote:
from http://www.rense.com




Could Mad Cow Disease Already
Be Killing Thousands Of
Americans Every Year?
By Michael Greger, M.D.
1-8-4


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
DrGregerMadCowUpdates-subscribe@lists.riseup.net



REFERENCES:

(Full text of specific articles available by emailing
article-request@DrGreger.org)

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4 Moyes, Jojo. "Depression Leads to Painful Death." Independent 21
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5 "Victims' Families Cry Cover-Up by Protecting Beef Industry,
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15 Journal of the American Medical Association, November 8, 2000;
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40 NBC Dateline 14 March 1997.

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55 British Journal of Psychiatry 158 (1991): 457-70.

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58 New England Journal of Medicine 310 (1984): 661-663.

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61 http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/alzheimr.htm

62 http://www.nimh.nih.gov/publicat/numbers.cfm

63 Neurology 34 (1984): 939.

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66 Alzheimer Disease and Associated Disorders 2 (1989): 100-109.

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73 Dementia and Normal Aging, Cambridge University Press, 1994.

74 Neurology 55 (2000):1075.

75 Lancet Infectious Disease. 1 August 2003.

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79 Neurology 43 (1993): A316.

80 The Wall Street Journal. 30 November 2001.

81 Beacon Journal (Akron). 5 June 2001.
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82 New York Times 30 January 2001.

83
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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

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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
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97 "World Health Organization says BSE is a major threat"
http://www.organicconsumers.org/madcow/BSE7601.cfm
FAIR USE NOTICE
Jim Scanlon
Posted: Thu Jan 08, 2004 10:53 pm
Guest
Here is the news article on CJD epidemic from Nature 25
April, 1996 by Ruth Bell

MRC faces negligence claims over growth hormone

London. Britain's Medical Research Council (MRC) was in
court last week facing allegations of negligence in the
experimental treatment in the 1960s and 1970s of children
using human growth hormone (hGH) from the pituitary
glands of people who had died.

The programme was discontinued in 1985, after three
patients who had undergone the treatment in the United
States died from Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD). Later
that year a new technique for manufacturing hGH by
genetic engineering became available.

The High Court in London has now opened a hearing on
eight of 17 cases of CJD contracted by individuals in the
United Kingdom treated with hGH before 1985. All but one
of the 17 have since died.

Families of the eight victims started legal action
against both the MRC and the Department of Health after
the latter turned down calls for a public inquiry. At
issue is whether the MRC and the department owed a duty
of care to the children undergoing hGH treatment and, if
so, whether they were in breach of that duty.

The families allege that the two bodies were negligent in
not taking into account evidence that CJD was
transmissible, not ensuring that no pituitaries were
taken from people suffering from neurological disease,
and not using the safest method of extraction of the
hormone.

The MRC began the hGH programme in 1957 and ran it until
the Department of Health took over control in 1976. But
the MRC continued to manufacture the hormone until 1980,
while the Department of Health was setting up production
facilities at the Centre for Applied Microbiology and
Research at Porton Down.

Between 1957 and 1980 the only source of the hormone was
the pituitary glands of people who had recently died.
"Demand for the human growth hormone increased because it
was a successful treatment," says a spokesman for the
MRC. Nearly 2,000 people received the hormone treatment.

Over 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.

According to Hugh Fraser, former head of the
Neuropathogenesis Unit at the Institute for Animal Health
in Edinburgh -- and an expert witness in the court case
-- a critical question the judge will have to decide is
"what knowledge was in place and when".

As early as the late 1950s, it was recognized that
scrapie-like diseases (such as CJD) might be
transmissible. Later it was shown that biopsy material
taken from the brain of a patient with CJD induced a
similar brain disease when injected into a chimpanzee.

Such information raised warning signals among
researchers. In October 1976, for example, Alan
Dickinson, then head of the Disease Studies Unit at the
Agricultural Research Council's laboratory in Edinburgh,
says he telephoned the MRC to inform them of potential
risks in the procedure.

A spokesman for the MRC said last week that when the
first evidence suggested the possibility of potential
risks, it was investigated. "When the evidence became
substantive, they stopped using it," he added.

Richard Nicholson, editor of The Bulletin of Medical
Ethics, points out that doctors providing a drug or a
hormone as a treatment have a duty to inform their
patients of any known side-effects. "The question is, at
what stage did the MRC know about these risks?", he says.

While acknowledging that contaminated hGH was the source
of the CJD infection, the Department of Health and the
MRC deny negligence. In a statement issued last week, the
MRC says that many people recognize that no form of
medical treatment is without risk, and denies that it was
negligent in supporting and monitoring the trial.

Irwin Mitchell, the solicitors for the plaintiffs, say
that the court's judgement will have a direct effect on a
further 200 cases now pending that have been filed on
behalf of those who have not developed CJD as a result of
hGH treatment, but fear that they may do so.
A Knucklehead
Posted: Fri Jan 09, 2004 1:56 am
Guest
If it matters, I'm convinced that both my mother in law and sister in law have had Mad Cow Disease
for decades. And yes, they have been slowly killing me.
Jim Webster