"Jon Leipzig" <
[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
>
> "pearl" <
[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> > USDA vets question agency's mad cow lab By Steve Mitchell United Press International
>
>
> > "The USDA has such a cohesive relationship with industry" that it wants to protect the $70
> > billion beef industry more than consumers, the veterinarian said, and noted colleagues with whom
> > he is in close contact think the agency's mad cow surveillance program "is a laughing matter."
> >
> "cohesive relationship" lol Actually the USDA (Inc) is the industry. The head PR wench, and the
> No.2 guy both came to the agency from the Cattleman's Ass'n.
>
> Think it was this same wire service, upi, that's been trying for many months to get documentation
> to verify the USDA claim that they tested 20k cows.
>
> Imo, it's much ado about nothing. Recalling the major outbreak in the UK, about a dozen yrs ago
> (?), you'd think by now there's scientific proof that humans can catch it from cows. (the 140 or
> so, deaths in UK were not randomly distributed, they tended to occur in clusters). I suspect
> there's some other culprit than those prions, but all the research funding is limited to prions.
<repost>
Could Mad Cow Disease Already be Killing Thousands of Americans Every Year? by Michael Greger, M.D.
Wednesday, January 7, 2004 by CommonDreams.org
October 2001, 34-year-old Washington State native Peter Putnam started losing his mind. One month he
was delivering a keynote business address, the next he couldn't form a complete sentence. Once
athletic, soon he couldn't walk. Then he couldn't eat. After a brain biopsy showed it was Creutzfeldt-
Jakob disease, his doctor could no longer offer any hope. "Just take him home and love him," the
doctor counseled his family.[1,2,3] Peter's tragic death, October 2002, may have been caused by Mad
Cow disease.
Seven years earlier and 5000 miles away, Stephen Churchill was the first in England to die. His
first symptoms of depression and dizziness gave way to a living nightmare of terrifying
hallucinations; he was dead in 12 months at age 19.[4] Next was Peter Hall, 20, who showed the first
signs of depression around Christmas, 1994. By the next Christmas, he couldn't walk, talk, or do
anything for himself.[5] Then it was Anna's turn, then Michelle's. Michelle Bowen, age 29, died in a
coma three weeks after giving birth to her son via emergency cesarean section. Then it was Alison's
turn. These were the first five named victims of Britain's Mad Cow epidemic. They died from what the
British Secretary of Health called the worst form of death imaginable, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, a
relentlessly progressive and invariably fatal human dementia.[6] The announcement of their deaths,
released on March 20, 1996 (ironically, Meatout Day[7]), reversed the British government's decade-
old stance that British beef was safe to eat.[8]
It is now considered an "incontestable fact" that these human deaths in Britain were caused by
Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE), or Mad Cow disease.[9] Bovine means "cow or cattle,"
spongiform means "sponge-like," and encephalopathy means "brain disease." Mad Cow disease is caused
by unconventional pathogens called prions--literally infectious proteins--which, because of their
unique structure, are practically invulnerable, surviving even incineration[10] at temperatures hot
enough to melt lead.[11] The leading theory as to how cows got Mad Cow disease in the first place is
by eating diseased sheep infected with a sheep spongiform encephalopathy called scrapie.[12]
In humans, prions can cause Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD), a human spongiform encephalopathy whose
clinical picture can involve weekly deterioration into blindness and epilepsy as one's brain becomes
riddled with tiny holes.
We've known about Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease for decades, since well before the first mad cow was
discovered in 1985. Some cases of CJD seemed to run in families; other cases seemed to just arise
spontaneously in about one in a million people every year, and were hence dubbed "sporadic." The new
form of CJD caused by eating beef from cows infected with Mad Cow disease, though, seemed to differ
from the classic sporadic CJD.
The CJD caused by infected meat has tended to strike younger people, has produced more psychotic
symptoms, and has often dragged on for a year or more. The most defining characteristic, though, was
found when their brains were sampled. The brain pathology was vividly reminiscent of Kuru, a disease
once found in a New Guinea tribe of cannibals who ate the brains of their dead.[13] Scientists
called this new form of the disease "variant" CJD.
Other than Charlene, a 24 year old woman now so tragically dying in Florida, who was probably
infected in Britain, there have been no reported cases of variant CJD in the U.S.[14] Hundreds of
confirmed cases of the sporadic form of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, however, arise in the United
States every year,[15] but the beef industry is quick to point out these are cases of sporadic CJD,
not the new variant known to be caused by Mad Cow disease.[16] Of course, no one knows what causes
sporadic CJD. New research, discussed below, suggests that not hundreds but thousands of Americans
die of sporadic CJD every year, and that some of these CJD deaths may be caused by eating infected
meat after all.
Although the fact that Mad Cow disease causes variant CJD had already been strongly established,
researchers at the University College of London nevertheless created transgenic mice complete with
"humanized" brains genetically engineered with human genes to try to prove the link once and for
all. When the researchers injected one strain of the "humanized" mice with infected cow brains, they
came down with the same brain damage seen in human variant CJD, as expected. But when they tried
this in a different strain of transgenic "humanized" mice, those mice got sick too, but most got
sick from what looked exactly like sporadic CJD! The Mad Cow prions caused a disease that had a
molecular signature indistinguishable from sporadic CJD. To the extent that animal experiments can
simulate human results, their shocking conclusion was that eating infected meat might be responsible
for some cases of sporadic CJD in addition to the expected variant CJD. The researchers concluded
that "it is therefore possible that some patients with [what looks like] ... sporadic CJD may have a
disease arising from BSE exposure."[17] Laura Manuelidis, section chief of surgery in the
neuropathology department at Yale University comments, "Now people are beginning to realize that
because something looks like sporadic CJD they can't necessarily conclude that it's not linked to
[Mad Cow disease]..."[18]
This is not the first time meat was linked to sporadic CJD. In 2001, a team of French researchers
found, to their complete surprise, a strain of scrapie--"mad sheep" disease--that caused the same
brain damage in mice as sporadic CJD.[19] "This means we cannot rule out that at least some sporadic
CJD may be caused by some strains of scrapie," says team member Jean-Philippe Deslys of the French
Atomic Energy Commission's medical research laboratory.[20]
Population studies had failed to show a link between CJD and lamb chops, but this French research
provided an explanation why. There seem to be six types of sporadic CJD and there are more than 20
strains of scrapie. If only some sheep strains affect only some people, studies of entire
populations may not clearly show the relationship. Monkeys fed infected sheep brains certainly come
down with the disease.[21] Hundreds of "mad sheep" were found in the U.S. in 2003.[22] Scrapie
remains such a problem in the United States that the USDA has issued a scrapie "declaration of
emergency."[23] Maybe some cases of sporadic CJD in the U.S. are caused by sheep meat as well.[24]
Pork is also a potential source of infection. Cattle remains are still boiled down and legally
fed to pigs (as well as chickens) in this country. The FDA allows this exemption because no
"naturally occurring" porcine (pig) spongiform encephalopathy has ever been found. But American
farmers typically kill pigs at just five months of age, long before the disease is expected to
show symptoms. And, because pigs are packed so tightly together, it would be difficult to spot
neurological conditions like spongiform encephalopathies, whose most obvious symptoms are
movement and gait disturbances. We do know, however, that pigs are susceptible to the disease--
laboratory experiments show that pigs can indeed be infected by Mad Cow brains[25]--and hundreds
of thousands of downer pigs, too sick or crippled by injury to even walk, arrive at U.S.
slaughterhouses every year.[26]
A number of epidemiological studies have suggested a link between pork consumption and sporadic CJD.
Analyzing peoples' diet histories, the development of CJD was associated with eating roast pork,
ham, hot dogs, pork chops, smoked pork, and scrapple (a kind of pork pudding made from various hog
carcass scraps). The researchers concluded, "The present study indicated that consumption of pork as
well as its processed products (e.g., ham, scrapple) may be considered as risk factors in the
development of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease." Compared to people that didn't eat ham, for example,
those who included ham in their diet seemed ten times more likely to develop CJD.[27] In fact, the
USDA may have actually recorded an outbreak of "mad pig" disease in New York 25 years ago, but still
refuses to reopen the investigation despite petitions from the Consumer's Union (the publishers of
Consumer Reports magazine).[28]
Sporadic CJD has also been associated with weekly beef consumption,[29] as well as the consumption
of roast lamb,[30] veal, venison, brains in general,[31] and, in North America, seafood.[32,33] The
development of CJD has also, surprisingly, been significantly linked to exposure to animal products
in fertilizer,[34] sport fishing and deer hunting in the U.S.,[35] and frequent exposure to leather
products.[36]
We do not know at this time whether chicken meat poses a risk. There was a preliminary report of
ostriches allegedly fed risky feed in German zoos who seemed to come down with a spongiform
encephalopathy.[37] Even if chickens and turkeys themselves are not susceptible, though, they may
become so-called "silent carriers" of Mad Cow prions and pass them on to human consumers.[38]
Dateline NBC quoted D. Carleton Gajdusek, the first to be awarded a Nobel Prize in Medicine for his
work on prion diseases,[39] as saying, "it's got to be in the pigs as well as the cattle. It's got
to be passing through the chickens."[40] Dr. Paul Brown, medical director for the US Public Health
Service, believes that pigs and poultry could indeed be harboring Mad Cow disease and passing it on
to humans, adding that pigs are especially sensitive to the disease. "It's speculation," he says,
"but I am perfectly serious."[41]
The recent exclusion of most cow brains, eyes, spinal cords, and intestines from the human food
supply may make beef safer, but where are those tissues going? These potentially infectious tissues
continue to go into animal feed for chickens, other poultry, pigs, and pets (as well as being
rendered into products like tallow for use in cosmetics, the safety of which is currently under
review[42]). Until the federal government stops the feeding of slaughterhouse waste, manure, and
blood to all farm animals, the safety of meat in America cannot be guaranteed.
The hundreds of American families stricken by sporadic CJD every year have been told that it just
occurs by random chance. Professor Collinge, the head of the University College of London lab, noted
"When you counsel those who have the classical sporadic disease, you tell them that it arises
spontaneously out of the blue. I guess we can no longer say that."
"We are not saying that all or even most cases of sporadic CJD are as a result of BSE exposure,"
Professor Collinge continued, "but some more recent cases may be-- the incidence of sporadic CJD has
shown an upward trend in the UK over the last decade... serious consideration should be given to a
proportion of this rise being BSE-related. Switzerland, which has had a substantial BSE epidemic,
has noted a sharp recent increase in sporadic CJD."[43] In the Nineties, Switzerland had the highest
rate of Mad Cow disease in continental Europe, and their rate of sporadic CJD doubled.[44]
We don't know exactly what's happening to the rate of CJD in this country, in part because CJD is
not an officially notifiable illness.[45] Currently only a few states have such a requirement.
Because the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) does not actively monitor the disease on a national
level,[46] a rise similar to the one in Europe could be missed.[47] In spite of this, a number of
U.S. CJD clusters have already been found. In the largest known U.S. outbreak of sporadic cases to
date,[48] five times the expected rate was found to be associated with cheese consumption in
Pennsylvania's Lehigh Valley.[49] A striking increase in CJD over expected levels was also reported
in Florida[50] and New York (Nassau County)[51] with anecdotal reports of clusters of deaths in
Oregon[52] and New Jersey.[53]
Perhaps particularly worrisome is the seeming increase in CJD deaths among young people in this
country. In the 18 years between 1979 and 1996, only a single case of sporadic CJD was found in
someone under 30. Whereas between 1997 and 2001, five people under 30 died of sporadic CJD. So five
young Americans dying in five years, as opposed to one young case in the previous 18 years. The true
prevalence of CJD among any age group in this country remains a mystery, though, in part because it
is so commonly misdiagnosed.[54]
The most frequent misdiagnosis of CJD among the elderly is Alzheimer's disease.[55] Neither CJD nor
Alzheimer's can be conclusively diagnosed without a brain biopsy,[56] and the symptoms and pathology
of both diseases overlap. There can be spongy changes in Alzheimer's, for example, and senile
Alzheimer's plaques in CJD.[57] Stanley Prusiner, the scientist who won the Nobel Prize for his
discovery of prions, speculates that Alzheimer's may even turn out to be a prion disease as
well.[58] In younger victims, CJD is more often misdiagnosed as multiple sclerosis or as a severe
viral infection.[59]
Over the last 20 years the rates of Alzheimer's disease in the United States have skyrocketed.[60]
According to the CDC, Alzheimer's Disease is now the eighth leading cause of death in the United
States,[61] afflicting an estimated 4 million Americans.[62] Twenty percent or more of people
clinically diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease, though, are found at autopsy not to have had
Alzheimer's at all.[63] A number of autopsy studies have shown that a few percent of Alzheimer's
deaths may in fact be CJD. Given the new research showing that infected beef may be responsible
for some sporadic CJD, thousands of Americans may already be dying because of Mad Cow disease
every year.[64]
Nobel Laureate Gajdusek, for example, estimates that 1% of people showing up in Alzheimer clinics
actually have CJD.[65] At Yale, out of a series of 46 patients clinically diagnosed with
Alzheimer's, six were proven to have CJD at autopsy.[66] In another study of brain biopsies, out of
a dozen patients diagnosed with Alzheimer's according to established criteria, three of them were
actually dying from CJD.[67] An informal survey of neuropathologists registered a suspicion that CJD
accounts for 2-12% of all dementias in general.[68] Two autopsy studies showed a CJD rate among
dementia deaths of about 3%.[69,70] A third study, at the University of Pennsylvania, showed that 5%
of patients diagnosed with dementia had CJD.[71] Although only a few hundred cases of sporadic CJD
are officially reported in the U.S. annually,[72] hundreds of thousands of Americans die with
dementia every year.[73] Thousands of these deaths may actually be from CJD caused by eating
infected meat.
The incubation period for human spongiform encephalopathies such as CJD can be decades.[74] This
means it can be years between eating infected meat and getting diagnosed with the death sentence of
CJD. Although only about 150 people have so far been diagnosed with variant CJD worldwide, it will
be many years before the final death toll is known. In the United States, an unknown number of
animals are infected with Mad Cow disease, causing an unknown number of human deaths from CJD. The
U.S. should immediately begin testing all cows destined for human consumption, as is done in Japan,
should stop feeding slaughterhouse waste to all farm animals (see
http://organicconsumers.org/madcow/GregerBSE.cfm), and should immediately enact an active national
surveillance program for CJD.[75]
Five years ago this week, the Center for Food Safety, the Humane Farming Association, the Center for
Media & Democracy, and ten families of CJD victims petitioned the FDA and the CDC to immediately
enact a national CJD monitoring system, including the mandatory reporting of CJD in all 50
states.[76] The petition was denied.[77] The CDC argued that their passive surveillance system
tracking death certificate diagnoses was adequate. Their analysis of death certificates in three
states and two cities, for example, showed an overall stable and typical one in a million CJD
incidence rate from 1979 to
1993.[78] But CJD is so often misdiagnosed, and autopsies are so infrequently done, that this system
may not provide an accurate assessment.[79]
In 1997, the CDC set up the National Prion Disease Pathology Surveillance Center at Case Western
Reserve University to analyze brain tissue from CJD victims in the U.S. in hopes of tracking any new
developments. In Europe, surveillance centers have been seeing most, if not all, cases of CJD. The
U.S. center sees less than half. "I'm very unhappy with the numbers," laments Pierluigi Gambetti ,
the director of the Center. "The British and Germans politely smile when they see we examine 30% or
40% of the cases," he says. "They know unless you examine 80% or more, you are not in touch."[80]
"The chance of losing an important case is high."[81]
One problem is that many doctors don't even know the Center exists. And neither the CDC nor the
Center are evidently authorized to reach out to them directly to bolster surveillance efforts,
because it's currently up to each state individually to determine how--or even whether--they will
track the disease. In Europe, in contrast, the national centers work directly with each affected
family and their physicians.[82] In the U.S., most CJD cases--even the confirmed ones--seem to just
fall through the cracks. In fact, based on the autopsy studies at Yale and elsewhere, it seems most
CJD cases in the U.S. aren't even picked up in the first place.
Autopsy rates have dropped in the U.S. from 50% in the Sixties to less than 10% at present.[83]
Although one reason autopsies are rarely performed on atypical dementia cases is that medical
professionals are afraid of catching the disease,[84] the primary reason for the decline in autopsy
rates in general appears to be financial. There is currently no direct reimbursement to doctors or
hospitals for doing autopsies, which often forces the family to absorb the cost of transporting the
body to an autopsy center and having the brain samples taken, a tab that can run upwards of
$1500.[85]
Another problem is that the National Prion Disease Pathology Surveillance Center itself remains
underfunded. Paul Brown, medical director for the National Institutes of Health, has described the
Center's budget as "pitiful," complaining that "there isn't any budget for CJD surveillance."[86] To
adequately survey America's 290 million residents, "you need a lot of money." UK CJD expert Robert
Will explains, "There was a CJD meeting of families in America in which... [the CDC] got attacked
fairly vigorously because there wasn't proper surveillance. You could only do proper surveillance if
you have adequate resources."[87] "I compare this to the early days of AIDS," says protein chemist
Shu Chen, who directs the Center's lab, "when no one wanted to deal with the crisis."[88]
Andrew Kimbrell, the director of the Center for Food Safety, a D.C.-based public interest group,
writes, "Given what we know now, it is unconscionable that the CDC is not strictly monitoring these
diseases."[89] Given the presence of Mad Cow disease in the U.S., we need to immediately enact
uniform active CJD surveillance on a national level, provide adequate funding not only for autopsies
but also for the shipment of bodies, and require mandatory reporting of the disease in all 50
states. In Britain, even feline spongiform encephalopathy, the cat version of Mad Cow disease, is an
officially notifiable illness. "No one has looked for CJD systematically in the U.S.," notes NIH
medical director Paul Brown. "Ever."[90]
The animal agriculture industries continue to risk public safety, and the government seems to
protect the industries' narrow business interests more than it protects its own citizens. Internal
USDA documents retrieved through the Freedom of Information Act show that our government did indeed
consider a number of precautionary measures as far back as 1991 to protect the American public from
Mad Cow disease. According to one such document, however, the USDA explained that the "disadvantage"
of these measures was that "the cost to the livestock and rendering industries would be
substantial."[91]
Plant sources of protein for farm animals can cost up to 30% more than cattle remains.[92] The
Cattlemen's Association admitted a decade ago that animal agribusiness could indeed find
economically feasible alternatives to feeding slaughterhouse waste to other animals, but that the
they did not want to set a precedent of being ruled by "activists."[93]
Is it a coincidence that USDA Secretary Veneman chose Dale Moore, former chief lobbyist for the
National Cattlemen's Beef Association, as her chief of staff?[94] Or Alison Harrison, former
director of public relations for the Cattlemen's Association, as her official spokeswoman?[95] Or
that one of the new Mad Cow committee appointees is William Hueston, who was paid by the beef
industry to testify against Oprah Winfrey in hopes of convicting her of beef "disparagement"?[96]
After a similar conflict of interest unfolded in Britain, their entire Ministry of Agriculture was
dissolved and an independent Food Safety Agency was created, whose sole responsibility is to protect
the public's health. Until we learn from Britain's lesson, and until the USDA stops treating this as
a PR problem to be managed instead of a serious global threat,
[1994] millions of Americans will remain at risk.
Michael Greger, M.D., has been the Chief BSE Investigator for Farm Sanctuary since 1993 and the Mad
Cow Coordinator for the Organic Consumers Association since 2001.
For periodic updates on the Mad Cow crisis send a blank email to DrGregerMadCowUpdates-
[email protected]
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