CJD-infectious colostrum?Isn't that part of Milk???

[Guest guest]

CJD-infectious colostrum? Colostrum gained 4 days after a cesarean section in the 30th week of pregnancy from a 38-year-old Japanese woman was injected directly into the brains of 20 BALB/c mice. 2 of these 20 mice became sick and showed according to the presentation given by the authors histopathologically recognizable spongiforme degeneration and astrogliosis. By injection of brain material from the diseased mice into the brains of other mice the authors demonstrated transmissibility of the disease. The child of this woman was not breast fed and has so far healthily reached at least its 6th year of life. [ALJP] The disquietening result of this experiment was simply concealed in many opinions on the BSE safety of milk. Others question it without backing their doubts by facts which could be checked. Thus the Scientific Steering Committee of the EU in its Opinion on the safety of milk with regard to TSE refers to a letter from Professor K. Yamanouchi to Ray Bradley dated February 1997, which unfortunately was never published and is not even quoted word-for-word, according to which a Japanese authority by further histopathological resp. immunhistochemical examinations of fixated brain slices of mice which had been inoculated with colostrum and later became sick detected neither spongiforme degenerations nor protease resistant prion proteins [ANCL]. This is rather peculiar, as the authors of the study had clearly reported to have found spongiforme degenerations and astrogliosis. Why, then, did the Japanese authority not publish a clarifying report on the assumed fake or at least on the misinterpretation by Tamai et al., and why was their paper not officially retracted if the data were, in fact, incorrect? Moreover the Japanese authority is reported to have actually detected spongiforme degenerations and protease resistant prion protein in brain slices of mice which had been inoculated with brain material from the mice which had been injected with colostrum [ANCL]. This raises the question how the allegedly not infected mice could have been infectious themselves. Quite strange is, too, that the Japanese authority as well as the SSC doubt the results of Tamai et al. only because after the initial transmission crossing a species barrier one had not found the typical holes and amyloid plaques [ANCL]. Apart from the contradicting statements of Tamai et al. also Clark

1981, Fraser et al. 1992 and Lasmézas et al. 1997 had shown that likewise transmitting Scrapie to cattle [AFPP] or BSE to mice [AEEK,AHBH] not always holes and immunologically detectable protease resistant prion protein can be found. Similarly the Scrapie strain SSBP/1 in sheep partly causes only minimal degenerative changes, making a clear neuropatholocical diagnosis hardly possible [ADIO,AEDB]. Finally in all experiments on the transmission of CJD or BSE to mice it was observed that different strains of mice showed different susceptibilities to certain strains of the infectious agent [ANCB, ANCC, ALMQ]. Insuccessful attempts to repeat a transmission experiment therefore do not necessarily prove it to be untrustworthy.

Scrapie transmission by semen or embryos? The embryo transfer study by Foster et al. [AEDB, AECX] intended to show whether scrapie infected sheep could infect their offspring already in the first days of gestation. The published first part of results in the year 1992 seemed to prove this [AEDB], but after an extension of the experiment by negative controls as published in

1996 this interpretation could no longer be upheld [AECX]. The biological offspring of not infected mothers developed the disease as often as the biological offspring of infected mothers. In view of all inadequacies of the experimental design this embryo transfer experiment by Foster and his colleagues shows that with Scrapie there must either occur transmission by clinically inapparent mothers or by ways of transmission other than the ingestion of infectious placenta. Moreover, this experiment demonstrates that a maternal transmission is highly unlikely up to the 6th day of gestation. Milk would have been only one of several possible ways of transmission in this experiment if there would actually exist scrapie resistant scrapie transmitters in sheep. In another embryo transfer experiment not even all experimentally infected sheep developed the disease and only 2 of 20 offspring of Scrapie infected sheep intended as positive controls [AECB]. Of the offspring produced by embryo transfer none contracted the disease, thus even this experiment does not point at maternal transmission [AECB].

New Experiments

In an experiment which has presumably begun in the meantime it shall be attempted to detect protease resistant prion protein in the concentrated milk of experimentally infected cows by one of the validated BSE-Tests [sEA]. The SEAC states with respect to this that an intracerebral inoculation of milk of BSE sick cows directly into the brains of calves would be favourable and therefore recommended such bioassays [sEA]. Without a species barrier and circumventing the digestive tract such a transmission experiment promises a significantly higher sensitivity than all experiments carried out so far. Also the SSC is aware of the limited significance of the studies carried out so far and of the existence of leukocytes in milk and made clear, that a precise estimation as to the BSE risk from milk and colostrum would not be possible without respective experiments using intracerebral inoculation in animals of the same species [ANCL]. Therefore the SSC advises against the consumption of colostrum, milk and milk products of BSE suspect animals and requires more significant transmission experiments [ANCL]. Until the end of March 2001 the SSC had no knowledge of plans for highly sensitive experiments in which milk of BSE sick cows was to be injected into the brains of calves [ANCL]. Commissioned by the Food Standards Agency only the milk of experimentally infected cows was to be examined for protease resistant prion protein [ANCL]. A research cooperation including

Prof. Erwin Märtlbauer, Chair of Hygiene and Technology of Milk at the Institute for Hygiene and Technology of Food of Animal Origin of the Veterinary Faculty of the Ludwig-Maximilians-University in Munich, Prof. Siegfried Scherer at the Institute for Microbiology of the Research Centre for Milk and Food in Weihenstephan of the Technical University of Munich, Prof. Manfred Gareis at the Institute for Microbiology and Toxicology of the Federal Institution for Meat Research in Kulmbach and Dr. Martin Groschup at the Institute for Immunology of the Federal Research Institution for Viral Diseases of Animals strives to achieve a concentration of the agent by biochemical and/or immunochemical methods which allows for a 1000 fold more sensitive detection of PrPSC in body fluids like milk, blood and meat juice. Moreover, according to an information given by Nora Hunter on the 14.3.2001 an experiment was to be carried out in which some scrapie susceptible lambs were to be hand-reared [ANCL].

Literature

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ANCC . Barlow,R.M.; Middleton,D.J. - Oral transmission of BSE to mice - Sub-Acute Spongiform Encephalopathies, edited by Ray Bradley, Marc Savey and Brian Marchant - Proceedings of a Seminar in the CEC Agricultural Research Programme, held in Brussels, 12-14 November 1990, 1991; 55: 33-9 in Current Topics in Veterinary Medicine and Animal Science

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ADIO . Dickinson,A.G. - Scrapie in sheep and goats - Frontiers of Biology 1976; 44: 209-41

AECB . Foote,W.C.; Clark,W.; Maciulis,A.; Call,J.W.; Hourrigan,J.; Evans,R.C.; Marshall,M.R.; de Camp,M. - Prevention of scrapie transmission in sheep, using embryo transfer - American Journal of Veterinary Research 1993 Nov; 54(11): 1863-8

AECX . Foster,J.D.; Hunter,N.; Williams,A.; Mylne,M.J.A.; Mckelvey,W.A.C.; Hope,J.; Fraser,H.; Bostock,C. - Observations on the transmission of scrapie in experiments using embryo-transfer - The Veterinary Record 1996 Jun 8; 138(23): 559-62

AEDA . Foster,J.D.; Hope,J.; Fraser,H. - Transmission of bovine spongiform encephalopathy to sheep and goats - The Veterinary Record 1993 Oct 2; 133(14): 339-41

AEDB . Foster,J.D.; McKelvey,W.A.; Mylne,M.J.; Williams,A.; Hunter,N.; Hope,J.; Fraser,H. - Studies on maternal transmission of scrapie in sheep by embryo transfer - The Veterinary Record 1992 Apr 18; 130(16): 341-3

ANCG . Fraser,H.; Foster,J.D. - Transmission to mice, sheep and goats and bioassay of bovine tissues - Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathies, R. Bradley and B. Marchant, eds.: Brussels: Working document for the European Commission Ref.F.II.3-JC/0003), pp. 145-159. - Proceedings of a Consultation on BSE with the Scientific Veterinary Committee of the Commission of the European Communities, 14-15 September 1993, (1994)

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AEZP Hadlow,W.J.; Kennedy,R.C.; Race,R.E. - Natural infection of Suffolk sheep with scrapie virus - Journal of Infectious Diseases 1982 Nov; 146(5): 657-64

AEZR . Hadlow,W.J.; Kennedy,R.C.; Race,R.E.; Eklund,C.M. - Virologic and neurohistologic findings in dairy goats affected with natural scrapie - Veterinary Pathology 1980 Mar; 17(2): 187-99

AEZS . Hadlow,W.J.; Eklund,C.M.; Kennedy,R.C.; Jackson,T.A.; Whitford,H.W.; Boyle,C.C. - Course of experimental scrapie virus infection in the goat - Journal of Infectious Diseases 1974 May; 129(5): 559-67

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AIIK . Middleton,D.J.; Barlow,R.M. - Failure to transmit bovine spongiform encephalopathy to mice by feeding them with extraneural tissues of affected cattle - The Veterinary Record 1993 May 29; 132(22): 545-7

ANBJ . Pattison,I.H.; Millson,G.C. - Distribution of the scrapie agent in the Tissues of experimentally inoculated goats - Journal of Comparative Pathology and Therapeutics 1962; 72: 233-44

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AJZJ . Ridley,R.M.; Baker,H.F. - The myth of maternal transmission of spongiform encephalopathy - British Medical Journal 1995 Oct 21; 311(7012): 1071-5 - http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/311/7012/1071

ANCL . Scientific Steering Committee - Safety of milk with regard to TSE: State of affairs - http://europa.eu.int/comm/food/fs/sc/ssc/out175_en.html

SEA . SEAC - Public summary of meeting on 28 February 2001 - http://www.defra.gov.uk/news/seac/seac101.htm

AKSU . Shaked,G.M.; Shaked,Y.; Kariv-Inbal,Z.; Halimi,M.; Avraham,I.; Gabizon,R. - A protease-resistant prion protein isoform is present in urine of animals and humans affected with prion diseases. - Journal of Biological Chemistry 2001 Aug 24; 276(34): 31479-82 - http://www.jbc.org/cgi/content/abstract/276/34/31479

ALJP . Tamai,Y.; Kojima,H.; Kitajima,R.; Taguchi,F.; Ohtani,Y.; Kawaguchi,T.; Miura,S.; Sato,M.; Ishihara,Y. - Demonstration of the transmissible agent in tissue from a pregnant woman with Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease - New England Journal of Medicine 1992 Aug 27; 327(9): 649

ALLU . Tateishi,J. - Transmission of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease from human blood and urine into mice - Lancet 1985 Nov 9; 2(8463): 1074

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ALNN . Taylor,D.M.; Ferguson,C.E.; Bostock,C.J.; Dawson,M. - Absence of disease in mice receiving milk from cows with bovine spongiform encephalopathy - The Veterinary Record 1995; 136(N23): 592

AMJF . Wells,G.A.H.; Hawkins,S.A.C.; Green,R.B.; Spencer,Y.I.; Dexter,I.; Dawson,M. - Limited detection of sternal bone marrow infectivity in the clinical phase of experimental bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) - The Veterinary Record 1999 March 13; 144(11): 292-4

AMJG . Wells,G.A.H.; Hawkins,S.A.C.; Green,R.B.; Austin,A.R.; Dexter,I.; Spencer,Y.I.; Chaplin,M.J.; Stack,M.J.; Dawson,M. - Preliminary observations on the pathogenesis of experimental bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE): an update - The Veterinary Record 1998 Jan 31; 142(5): 103-6

AMJJ . Wells,G.A.; Dawson,M.; Hawkins,S.A.; Green,R.B.; Dexter,I.; Francis,M.E.; Simmons,M.M.; Austin,A.R.; Horigan,M.W. - Infectivity in the ileum of cattle challenged orally with bovine spongiform encephalopathy - The Veterinary Record 1994 Jul 9; 135(2): 40-1

ANDA . Wijeratne,W.V.; Curnow,R.N. - A study of the inheritance of susceptibility to bovine spongiform encephalopathy - The Veterinary Record 1990 Jan 6; 126(1): 5-8

AMMU . Wilesmith,J.W.; Wells,G.A.; Ryan,J.B.; Gavier-Widen,D.; Simmons,M.M. - A cohort study to examine maternally-associated risk factors for bovine spongiform encephalopathy - Veterinary Record 1997 Sep 6; 141(10): 239-43

AMMT Wilesmith,J.W.; Ryan,J.B. - Absence of BSE in the offspring of pedigree suckler cows affected by BSE in Great Britain - Veterinary Record 1997 Sep 6; 141(10): 250-1

Acknowledgements

I am thanking Mrs Dr Schütt-Abraham for a stimulating discussion of my work and the Agricultural Ministry in Nordrhein-Westfalen for a financial support.

 

 

 

 

karl theis jr

http://groups.msn.com/exposureofthetruth

 

 

 

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