New Canadian mad cow case suspected

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Full article: http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=worldNews&storyID=2006-04-13T180206Z_01_N13257985_RTRUKOC_0_UK-MADCOW-CANADA.xml

Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease at this point, I'd be shocked.

There is no danger (except fo becoming overweight and having a heart attack) in grass-fed beef.

Anyone who eats supermarket beef is crazy.
By supermarket beef, I am talking about beef that has feedlot origin.

Prions are ubiquitous. They can remain intact in ANY situation we've studied so far. If lots of eeevil beef-eaters develop CJD, then plenty of non-beef-eaters will have it, too. The things (prions) are nearly impossible to get rid of, because they are tight little protein macromolecules. The best evidence we have indicates that cattle are merely good carriers of BSE, not a prime vector. Prions are opportunistic. And it's almost certain that the prions are also in a lot of aquifers.

If you're having a vedge gloat session, shame on you. Have you ever seen a CJD patient? I used to work as a brain lab tech and I've done EEGs on four of them -- and thus, I am also in the statistical high-risk group for CJD. (No, I'm not particularly worried about it.) It's a fucking brutal disease. The same way that "AIDS is punishment for homosexuality", the idea that CJD or Mad Cow Disease is a punishment for eating meat is morally repugnant.

Right now, both Mad Cow disease (BSE) and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease are quite rare. Finding effective treatments and a cure are not negotiable -- this involves basic biological science as well as a medical need.

There are many reasons to be a vegetarian. Avoiding CJD/BSE isn't one of them. We're all in this one together.

--p!

that it isn't more prevalent than we are led to believe. My father has a very early onset of dementia, he's now in a care home and isn't even 70 yet.

I heard that labs don't like to do testing on brains that are suspected of CJD/BSE because it is so contagious and you can't kill the prion so cleaning up after the testing is next to impossible. It that true?

We were in Saskatchewan deep in cattle country last year and one of the old fellows we were chatting with in a little local cafe told us that it is everywhere. That one of the local ranchers quietly slaughtered a herd of calves he had that were staggering all over the place. And these were grass fed cows, although I suppose that he could have bought them from a feedlot. Its really gross when you hear about what they feed the calves when they are young. They don't get their mother's milk anymore.

I suspect that the ranchers take matters into their own hands without notifying authorities more than we care to find out about. Plus how many cattle that don't show symptoms yet make it into the food chain, because there is no testing done?

The reason why it has emerged in BSE is probably because the cattle's bodies are incapable of resisting the prion at all. Humans probably have better defensive systems. But "better" doesn't mean "immune". Therein lies the problem. And combined with the extremely long potential latency of the prion, it also means that vegetarianism, quarantine, etc., will be impractical. Absurd.

You're right, most CJD testing is done in the few high-level hospital labs (Wistar, Penn and Jefferson in Philadelphia, where I live) that have skilled technicians and scientists. The waste is burned in special vessels designed to burn at a very high temperature, and the ash is stored like nuclear material.

At least, it used to be.

I did EEGs on CJD patients, which doesn't involve blood, but I remember that one of the doctors argued strongly that all my clothes should go into the waste container, that I should scrub down with alcohol, and be reimbursed by the hospital for my clothes. Only the threat of my nudity persuaded them otherwise, although I had been an artists' life model just a few years before, and was used to being nekkid in front of people. It was funny -- and mad. But at least one of the CJD patients got a laugh out of it, so I figured that the gods must have been pleased.

As for your last question, well, we know fuck-all about the real levels of CJD/BSE/Kuru prions in nature. It's impossible to do proper agricultural studies like BSE epidemiology because there is not enough money to get the job done. The USDA has been gutted by every Republican since Eisenhower. I'm convinced it's the reason that otherwise-trivial food poisoning is still staggeringly common in the USA. We had a little boy in my area who died a few years ago because he ate strawberries contaminated with a deadly E. coli variant. A splash of dilute chlorine bleach or peroxide at the packing plant would have saved his life -- but to require even a dirt-cheap solution like that is Socialifm Moft Foul! It's impossible to say why your father has developed dementia, but it is one of those things that has become universal in just the last 50 years -- along with multiple and dangerous allergies, diabetes, obesity, sex-based diseases, several baffling kinds of cancers and degenerative diseases; and a list which is bound to grow larger, longer, and more frightening.

Modern agricultural and food-distribution practices, influenced by the death-dealing ideology masquerading as Capitalism, has led to enormous numbers of real-life incubators for new, exotic, and highly pathogenic diseases, which are able to conduct large-scale gene-recombination runs for viruses, and massive novel protein-synthesis in the case of prions. The scum that we unconcernedly leave in our wake, festering in the closed spaces formed by the artifacts of our society, become self-sustaining biological reactors.

How about a few drops of Clorox, a little peroxide? Soap and water, for cryin' out loud! Fresh air and sunlight!

So, it's not just the cows. They're pretty big for canaries, but canaries they are. Perhaps that's why the Hindus have long considered cows to be holy animals. They may be the sentinels for plagues, the kinds of which we can't even imagine.

And for want of a penny, we are breeding the Horsemen of the Apocalypse. We are breeding them strong, and swift, and brazen. But fear will get us nowhere. Don't fear Death in any of its disguises -- fight!

--p!

to use for prevention and taking responsibility for my own health care. I don't trust the corporate form of medicine that we are subjected to. Its like they want these plagues so that they can hype their snake oil "cures", which of course never cure anything and drain the user dry. But let anything cost them a dime and they scream bloody murder.

Why ever would the doctor expect you to scrub down with alcohol after doing an EEG, what good would that do? I read the Mad Cow book; this was a couple of years ago and my memory isn't always the greatest but I'm sure that they said that there is nothing that kills it and even once its in the soil it can't be eradicated.

Thanks for your involved answer, much appreciated.

In a few years, you may not be able to use "alternative" medicine. Unless it's properly "Peer Reviewed" -- only the "right" Peers will be allowed -- it may be a felony to so much as soak your tootsies in perfumed herbal soap.

I have no problem with busting the hard-case, cynical bastards who sell magical candles for $2000 blessed by the Grand Parou, but the "quackpots" are in overdrive these days. They put the Grand Parou on the cover of their glossy "peer reviewed" magazines, but they make sure their politician pals put the herbal foot soap in the text of the law, and the deed is done.

By the way, the doctor who wanted me to sacrifice my clothes and scrub down with alcohol was actually a decent guy and an excellent neurologist. I did not take offense at his demand, though I did find macabre humor in it. This event took place (IIRC) in 1988, before prions were known to be as tough as they are. In fact, a number of physicians thought that CJD was caused by a virus, so suggesting an alcohol scrubdown wasn't so outlandish. But "the literature" didn't support the destruction of clothing or a scrubdown, especially since I was quite diligent (and as I wrote, the other techs were even better at their craft than I was).

There is actually no need for complete despair with regards to prion disease. Just because we know of nothing that kills them, doesn't mean that they're actually indestructible. Prions are proteins, and there is no such thing as an indestructible protein, although many of them are incredibly tough. Think of a protein as a mathematically coiled rope that can only be uncoiled one or two certain ways -- it can take some time, but the problem isn't unsolvable.

Still, we seriously need to stop screwing around when it comes to important things like food and health. Banning herbs and vitamins at random but ignoring grossly irresponsible agricultural and food practices is a recipe for peer-reviewed death.

--p!

like all the other dirty little lies.

Which is why I switched to all organic beef, chicken, dairy over 3 yrs. ago. Nice little side benefit? I lost about 20 lbs. by no longer consumming the sh*t they use to fatten the animals (hormones, antibiotics, etc.)