Scary News About vBSE

[bearkiller]

Hello all,

This just came to me from Nature. The latest unpleasant news regarding Mad Cow Disease. Seems those prions get about in the body as a response to other infection or simple inflammation processes. Not nice to think about.

See: http://www.nature.com/news/2005/0501...050117-11.html

bearkiller

[FrankTheTank]

Has it been found out yet if BSE can be spread through milk/cheese/etc...last i heard they were testing to find out if it could...???

[Wanda]

Bear Killer
As with almost all articles about and related to BSE this is a theory. Nobody has ever came up with a way to transmit BSE to another animal or human. If they are ever able to do this it will very easy to control and eradicate BSE. The thing to keep in mind is we are hearing theorys and the risk from BSE is very, very small.

[Ross]

They have proven feed containing BSE from brain/spinal tissue can be transmitted to another animal. They even fed Scrapie material (sheep BSE) to cattle and a few came down with a form of cow scrapie (but not BSE) So banning meat meal in ruminant animal feed should stop that route but is it the only method of transmision? BSE its self wasn't the problem rather a varient strain or vBSE was/is. Certainly not everyone gets vBSE or CJD but why? I always thought the idea BSE is cumulative in the soil/agruculture, made worse but industrial polution (England has been heavily industrial for decades on a small land mass) and then compound the problem by feeding accumulated prions to clean (-ish) animals and they get sick younger. Maybe its a genetic predisposition or genetic damage, most of us may be tolerant of prions or flush them out! We've faced bigger problems with less hype thats for sure!

[Ken Scharabok]

To my knowledge they have only been able to transfer BSE from one cow to another by injecting brain tissue from a BSE-infected cow into the brain of a non-BSE-infected cow. It is how some CJD was passed on during brain surgury. Normal sterilization process won't kill prions. Surgical instruments which now come in contact with the brain are disposed of after each surgury as hazardous medical waste I believe.

Last I heard they had not been able to pass it on through feed, but it does have a long incubation period.

I still hold to my base theory BSE passed on in beef contaminated with BSE-infected tissue (such as spinal cord matter) only triggered CJD early in people who were going to get it later in life anyway. CJD occurs naturally in about 1/1M human deaths pretty well around the world.

MCD (BSE) may also occur in cattle at some rate (say the 1/1M) if they were allowed to live very long. The typical beef animal seldoms lives to see eight years of age. Dairy cows are usually even shorter in high intensity dairies.

BSE and vCJD is predominately hype. However, it has lead to a better understanding of prions and how they might be involved in various health issues.

Ken Scharabok

[mightybooboo]

BK,sent you an email

BooBoo