Fw: Rachel #683: MAD COW DISEASE AND HUMANS

[Guest guest]

Dear Prabhus,

 

PAMHO. AGTSP.

 

We received a letter from some devotee inquiring about Mad Cow Disease. Lost

the letter, but here is some recent info on it.

 

Your servant,

Chaydevi

 

 

-

<rachel (AT) rachel (DOT) org>

<rachel-weekly (AT) europe (DOT) std.com>

Friday, January 21, 2000 6:57 PM

Rachel #683: MAD COW DISEASE AND HUMANS

 

 

> =======================Electronic Edition========================

> . .

> . RACHEL'S ENVIRONMENT & HEALTH WEEKLY #683 .

> . ---January 20, 2000--- .

> . HEADLINES: .

> . MAD COW DISEASE AND HUMANS .

> . ========== .

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>

> MAD COW DISEASE AND HUMANS

>

> When a new form of an old human disease appeared in England in

> 1995, some medical specialists immediately suspected that it

> might be a human version of "mad cow disease," but they had no

> proof.[1] Mad cow disease had appeared in British dairy cattle

> for the first time in 1985 and during the subsequent decade

> 175,000 British cows had died from it. British health authorities

> spent that decade reassuring the public that there was no danger

> from eating the meat of infected cows. They said a "species

> barrier" prevented mad cows from infecting humans. A "species

> barrier" does prevent many diseases from crossing from one

> species to another -- for example, measles and canine distemper

> are closely related diseases, but dogs don't get measles and

> humans don't get distemper.

>

> While the British government was placing its faith in the species

> barrier, British citizens began to die of a new disease, called

> "new variant Creutzfeld-Jakob disease" or nvCJD. A similar

> disease, CJD (Creutzfeld-Jakob disease) had been recognized for a

> long time but it almost never occurs in people younger than 30;

> nvCJD, on the other hand, strikes people as young as 13. There

> are several other differences between CJD and nvCJD, so nvCJD

> represents something new. To date, nvCJD has killed 48 people in

> England and one or two others elsewhere in Europe. The main

> feature of both mad cow disease and nvCJD is the progressive

> destruction of brain cells, inevitably leading to total

> disability and death.

>

> New research published late in 1999 showed that nvCJD is, in

> fact, a human form of mad cow disease,[2] dashing all hope that a

> species barrier can protect humans from this deadly bovine

> affliction.

>

> Mad cow disease is formally known as "bovine spongiform

> encephalopathy" or BSE. BSE is the cow version of a larger class

> of diseases called "transmissible spongiform encephalopathies,"

> or TSEs. TSEs can afflict sheep, deer, elk, cows, mink, cats,

> squirrels, monkeys, humans and other species. In all species the

> symptoms of TSEs are the same -- progressive destruction of brain

> cells leading to dementia and death.

>

> Traditional Creutzfeld-Jakob disease (CJD) is a rare human

> affliction. The visible symptoms are similar to Alzheimer's

> disease; in fact, CJD is sometimes diagnosed as Alzheimer's and

> therefore may go unrecognized. CJD strikes one in a million

> people almost all of whom are older than 55. In people younger

> than age 30, CJD is extremely rare, striking an average of 5

> people per billion each year, worldwide (not counting the recent

> outbreak in England).

>

> In cows, the latency (or incubation) period for mad cow disease

> is about 5 years, meaning that cows have the disease for five

> years before symptoms begin to appear. No one knows the latency

> period for nvCJD in humans, but it is thought to be around 10

> years. Because of this uncertainty, no one is sure how many

> people in England already have the disease but are not yet

> showing symptoms. The British government's chief medical officer,

> Professor Liam Donaldson, said December 21, 1999, "We're not

> going to know for several years whether the size of the epidemic

> will be a small one, in other words in the hundreds, or a very

> large one, in the hundreds of thousands."

>

> The epidemic of mad cow disease was caused by an agricultural

> innovation -- feeding dead cows to live cows. Cows are, by

> nature, vegetarians. But modern agricultural techniques changed

> that. Cows that died mysteriously were sent to rendering plants

> where they were boiled down and ground up into the consistency of

> brown sugar, and eventually added to cattle feed. It was later

> determined that mad cow disease was being transmitted through

> such feed, and especially through certain specific tissues --

> brain, spinal cord, eyes, spleen and perhaps other nerve tissues.

>

> Ten new cases of nvCJD were reported in England in 1999, bringing

> the total to 48. It has been more than 10 years since government

> authorities banned the use of the particular parts of cows

> thought to transmit mad cow disease. The appearance of new cases

> of nvCJD in 1999 implies either that the latency period for the

> disease is longer than 10 years, or that infected meat was not

> effectively eliminated from the food chain when government

> authorities said it was, or both.

>

> The SUNDAY TIMES of London reported in late December that some

> meat banned for human consumption is still being marketed in

> England. After the mad cow scandal erupted, the British

> government attempted to eradicate the disease by requiring that

> all cows older than 30 months be slaughtered. As a result, by

> last September more than 2.5 million British cows had been

> killed. But the TIMES reported that British investigators have

> documented at least 50 cases of farmers and cattle dealers using

> bogus identity documents to falsify the ages of cows in order to

> sell them for human consumption. Furthermore, the Agriculture

> Ministry acknowledged that as many as 90,000 cattle could not be

> accounted for. About 1600 new cases of mad cow disease are still

> being reported each year in England.

>

> In December, French health authorities announced finding a second

> case of nvCJD, a 36-year-old woman in Paris. France has continued

> to refuse to import British beef, even though the European Union

> on August 1, 1999, formally declared British beef as safe as any

> in the European Union. The European Union said in December it

> will take France to the European Court of Justice to force it to

> import British beef. Germany is also refusing to import British

> beef.

>

> The U.S. government says mad cow disease has never been observed

> in any U.S. cows. However, a closely-related TSE disease, called

> chronic wasting disease (CWD), has been increasing for almost 20

> years among wild deer and elk in northern Colorado and southern

> Wyoming. Since 1981, CWD has been spreading slowly among wild

> deer and elk herds in the Rocky Mountains and now afflicts

> between 4% and 8% of 62,000 deer in the region between Fort

> Collins, Colorado and Cheyenne, Wyoming.

>

> During 1999, CWD erupted among a herd of elk on the David Kesler

> Game Farm near Philipsburg, Montana, which raised elk

> commercially. A few of Mr. Kesler's elk had been shipped to

> Oklahoma and Idaho, and perhaps elsewhere, and CWD was discovered

> in some of those animals, too. In early December, Montana health

> authorities slaughtered 81 elk on Mr. Kesler's farm. They

> initially announced plans to incinerate the carcasses, but later

> decided that incineration would be too expensive. The animals

> were finally buried at the High Plains Sanitary Landfill north of

> Great Falls. Equipment used to feed, water and care for the

> animals was also buried in the landfill. Montana authorities

> announced that the fenceline at the elk farm would be

> decontaminated, but they did not say what procedure they would

> use. Nor did they announce what would become of Mr. Kesler's

> contaminated land. The disease agent that causes CWD -- a prion

> protein -- is very hardy and resists destruction by traditional

> sterilization techniques like alcohol and heat.

>

> The diseased elk carcasses in the High Plains landfill have been

> buried under a mound of garbage but will still be accessible to

> rainwater and perhaps to scavenging animals.

>

> In northeastern Colorado and southeastern Wyoming, state

> officials are urging hunters to protect themselves when dressing

> wild deer and elk they have shot. Hunters should wear rubber

> gloves, minimize contact with brain and spinal cord tissues,

> discard the brain, spinal cord, eyes, spleen and lymph nodes and

> definitely not eat them. There is no evidence that CWD can cross

> over from deer and elk to humans, but there was no firm evidence

> that mad cow disease could afflict humans until 1999, so wildlife

> officials in the Rocky Mountain states say caution is warranted.

>

> Writing in the BOSTON GLOBE, Terry J. Allen reported in late 1999

> that, since 1996, Creutzfeld-Jakob disease has been identified in

> 3 Americans younger than age 30.[3] All three are known to have

> hunted extensively or eaten venison. There is no evidence that

> CWD disease has jumped from deer or elk to humans, but the

> appearance of this extremely-rare disease in young people was the

> first evidence of a problem in England, so health authorities in

> the U.S. say they are aggressively investigating all the

> possibilities.

>

> A statistician at the federal Centers for Disease Control (CDC)

> in Atlanta told Terry Allen that, if one more case of CJD had

> surfaced in a person younger than 30 in the U.S., it "might tip

> the balance," meaning it might convince authorities that

> something truly unusual was occurring. Dr. Michael Hansen of

> Consumer's Union says, "Given how rare the disease is in young

> people and how difficult it is to make a diagnosis, the

> possibility that some cases go undetected cannot be ruled

> out."[3]

>

> Indeed, of the 3 cases detected in the U.S. since 1996, one

> nearly went undetected. Last year in Utah, Doug McEwan, 28, began

> to show an array of mysterious symptoms: loss of memory, loss of

> motor control, mood swings, and disorientation. His wife, Tracey,

> says his doctors conducted hundreds of tests but could not

> diagnose his disease. She happened to see a TV program on mad cow

> disease and she insisted that Doug's doctors must test for CJD. A

> brain biopsy confirmed the diagnosis.

>

> One of the three young CJD victims had eaten deer shot near

> Rangely, Maine, so last November federal officials took samples

> of brains from 299 deer shot in western Maine. Authorities said

> at the time they were quite sure Maine deer are not harboring

> CWD. So far, test results have not been released.

>

> Federal authorities have quarantined two herds of sheep in

> Vermont because they say the sheep may have been given feed that

> contained parts of animals afflicted by mad cow disease. The

> sheep had been imported into Vermont from Belgium and the

> Netherlands, where they may have been fed improperly. A similar

> herd of sheep in New York state was recently purchased by the

> federal government and slaughtered.[4]

>

> Meanwhile, a 68-year-old Indiana man with a fondness for

> beef-brain sandwiches died of CJD last summer. Beef-brain

> sandwiches are a local delicacy in Indiana, introduced years ago

> by German immigrants. The EVANSVILLE (INDIANA) COURIER reported

> that John Hiedingsfelder, a forensic pathologist in Evansville,

> said he had seen three cases of CJD in the past year. No

> connection to mad cow disease has been established in the Indiana

> cases. Roberta Heiman, a staff writer for the EVANSVILLE

> (INDIANA) COURIER reportedly received a warning from a

> cattleman's association not to publish any further articles about

> this subject.

> ============

>

> [1] Unless a specific source is cited, information in this issue

> of Rachel's was taken from www.mad-cow.org, a web site maintained

> by Thomas Pringle of Eugene, Oregon. Sources of information are

> cited at www.mad-cow.org.

>

> [2] Michael R. Scott and others, "Compelling transgenic evidence

> for transmission of bovine spongiform encephalopathy prions in

> humans," PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES Vol. 96,

> No. 26 (December 21, 1999), pgs. 15137-15142.

>

> [3] Terry J. Allen, "Rare, Animal-Borne Disease a Medical

> Mystery; Officials Examine Maine Deer in Hunt for Clues," BOSTON

> GLOBE December 12, 1999, pg. C26.

>

> [4] Matthew Taylor, "Mad Cow Fears, Anger on Farms; Two Imported

> Sheep Herds Quarantined in Vermont," BOSTON GLOBE October 31,

> 1999, pg. F24.

>

> Descriptor terms: mad cow disease; england; france; montana;

> wyoming; vermont; maine; deer; elk; bse; tse; central nervous

> system disorders;

>

> ################################################################

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>

[Guest guest]

Dear Mataji,

 

Thanks for posting this. I sent a copy to all my family members on the

Internet.

 

 

All glories to your service!

 

Your servant,

 

Pancha Tattva dasa

 

On 24 Jan 2000, ISCOWP Balabhadra Dasa & Chaya Dasi - USA wrote:

 

> Dear Prabhus,

>

> PAMHO. AGTSP.

>

> We received a letter from some devotee inquiring about Mad Cow Disease. Lost

> the letter, but here is some recent info on it.

>

> Your servant,

> Chaydevi