Organic Eye Opener

Little John:

As noted in the article, Mark Purdey proposed the insecticide as the triggering agent fairly soon after the outbreak occurred. He was pretty well booed and hissed at by the scientific community, but now seems on the verge of being vindicated.

(And this is the primary reason I have refused to use pour-on insecticides.)

Since BSE-contamined beef was apparently so widespread in the British food system, and yet so few came down with vCJD, I suspect there is a human triggering agent as well. It might be those 150 or so people would have contracted CJD later in life anyway and exposure to BSE just triggered it early. (ADDED: Note even in clusters, it is still small numbers affected against total population exposed.)

I still also hold the theory BSE can be spontaneous. How many cases of 'staggers' in cattle may have been BSE instead. If you talk to seasoned cattle folks they will admit it is likely MCD has been around for a while. It just occured rarely and the animals were put down and buried or sent to a rendering plant, perhaps to become pet food. Doesn't it sort of make you wonder about cases of normally gentle pets suddently attacking people? Testing afterwards was likely for hydrofobia, not prions. Remember in Britian some cats were documented to come down with SE apparently from eating BSE-contaminated beef either from the kitchen or in their feed.

Perhaps rather than outlawing the use of M&BM, perhaps livestock insecticides containing organophosphate should be banned instead.

(And perhaps it should be banned for other applications, such as lice control, as well.)

With the all the analyzing going on around here about this issue, it's just not safe. And, it's gross.