Two Native U.S. MCD Cases May be a Different Strain

[Ken Scharabok]

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercu...h/14794027.htm

Pleased to see researchers are now admitting BSE just might be spontaneous. If so all of the provisions of NAIS won't stop it, not will tracking it to the past owners help any.

New question becomes if this new strain can even cause vCJD.

If spontaneous logic would be it has occurred in the past, perhaps a fair number of times, with the beef entering the U.S. food supply. Yes I know of no native U.S. cases of vCJD. I will concede there may have been but it just wasn't recognized as vCJD.

[Sprout]

They've always known that it happens spontaniously they just kept it quiet. With the elimination of bone and beef meal it quarantined the cases. The only way a human or other cow can get it is to eat the altered prion. It's just a mutant amino acid that isn't translated or transcribed correctly and it was supposed to have some nural function which is why it's only found in the nerve tissue. Weird proteins are formed all the time there is no way to prevent this disease. The only way to truly protect the market is to test each animal being slaughtered as Japan does. (they're a little paranoid but hey it works.)

[Ken Scharabok]

"The only way a human or other cow can get it is to eat the altered prion. It's just a mutant amino acid that isn't translated or transcribed correctly and it was supposed to have some nural function which is why it's only found in the nerve tissue."

Yes, but... In the case of Britian likely a substantial portion of the population at the time was exposed to BSE-tainted beef. However, less than 150 cases of vCJD were documented. Why did they, and not the millions of others who consumed the tainted beef, come down with vCJD? Were these programmed to acquire CJD in the future anyway and exposure to BSE merely triggered it early. If so, of those exposed, only about 1/1M would be susceptible based on annual death rate by cause.

If it is spontaneous is the rate in cattle about 1/1M at slaughter also? Then perhaps exposure and acquiring vCJD might be 1/1Mth of 1/1M.

Actually, in cattle, rate may be much higher than 1/1M at slaughter since, according to the article, it seems more prevalent in older cows. Most of beef and dairy cattle in the U.S. doesn't live to old age. For example, you have a cow/calf herd and one cow has had 10 calves. Chances are those calves were sold to go into a feedlot and never saw two-years of age. Dairy cattle only last a couple of years on the milk line in high-intensity dairies before they are replaced. Outside the cull cow market there is little demand for those culled dairy cows.

[JeffNY]

I remember in school, there was talk about different immunitys. With rabies, there is someone out there, or a couple that are immune to the rabies virus. Who could it be? Certainly won't find out, nor does anyone want to chance it. But supposedly there are the individuals out there that have immunities to certain diseases, they can never get. The percentage is ridiculous, out of the entire world population, maybe a couple have this for certain diseases. So perhaps with vCJD, the majority of the population has some resistance to it. There are more people being killed every day by cars, than have been killed total by vCJD, so why hasn't the government put more control on cars? .


Jeff

[jnap31]

SSSSHH! Jeff dont give them any bright ideas

[Ken Scharabok]

I would see it as those acquiring vCJD had a extra sensitive susceptibility to it. I am not up on all of the vCJD cases in England but I don't believe more than any one family member contracting it, even though all likely ate the same beef. Same genetics, virtually the same DNA, something made the difference between who got vCJD and who didn't.

I still hold to my theory those who got vCJD were destined to get CJD later in life.