Mad Cow/apraxia links -are there any?

December 27, 2003

In speaking with one of my friends who is an internist -she told me

that Mad Cow (bovine spongiform encephalopathy or BSE) incubation period is

around 6 years. In reading the cases of BSE -in humans it's spread

as " Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease "

" The epidemic of bovine spongiform encephalopathy in the United

Kingdom, which began in 1986 and has affected nearly 200,000 cattle,

is waning to a conclusion, but leaves in its wake an outbreak of

human Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, most probably resulting from the

consumption of beef products contaminated by central nervous system

tissue. Although averaging only 10-15 cases a year since its first

appearance in 1994, its future magnitude and geographic distribution

(in countries that have imported infected British cattle or cattle

products, or have endogenous BSE) cannot yet be predicted. The

possibility that large numbers of apparently healthy persons might

be incubating the disease raises concerns about iatrogenic

transmissions through instrumentation (surgery and medical

diagnostic procedures) and blood and organ donations. Government

agencies in many countries continue to implement new measures to

minimize this risk. "

http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/eid/vol7no1/brown.htm

In reading nine case studies of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease -almost

all developed apraxia (and other symptoms)

http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext & pid=S0004-282X1998000300003 & l\

ng=en & nrm=iso

Here is just one of the many recent articles on the recent dairy cow

found to have Mad Cow. Again -if this cow was just discovered -then

the milk from this cow has been in circulation for years. Of course

milk is " not believed to pose any risk for transmitting the BSE

agent " but please read all of this and then let us know what you

think of the question I pose below.

" In the aftermath of the discovery that a Washington dairy cow

slaughtered on Dec. 9 was stricken by mad cow disease, dairy

farmers' early reaction in Coos County is guarded. Meanwhile, those

raising beef cattle locally are girding themselves for depressed

prices for their stock.

Local milk producers said Friday their farming practices - feed made

without animal products, breeding their own animals rather than

purchasing those from other areas - should safeguard the local

industry. At the same time, they admitted the public's trust in

cattle products in the near future, milk as well as meat, remains

unknown. "

http://www.theworldlink.com/articles/2003/12/27/news/news01.txt

And more of the quote from above:

" Although there is very strong evidence that the agent responsible

for the human disease is the same agent responsible for the BSE

outbreaks in cattle, the specific foods that might be associated

with the transmission of this agent from cattle to humans are

unknown. "

" To reduce the possible current risk of acquiring vCJD from food,

travelers to Europe or other areas with indigenous cases of BSE or

at possibly increased risk of BSE may wish to consider either:

(1) avoiding beef and beef products altogether or

(2) selecting beef or beef products, such as solid pieces of muscle

meat (versus calf brains or beef products such as burgers and

sausages), which might have a reduced opportunity for contamination

with tissues that may harbor the BSE agent.

Milk and milk products from cows are not believed to pose any risk

for transmitting the BSE agent. "

http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/diseases/cjd/bse_cjd.htm

Even thought the conditions always written about are fatal. I know

this may sound like a silly question -but Is it possible that there

is a nonfatal nonprogressive form of this disease too just like

there are various types of disorders of the myelin?

" In Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (CJD), the situation is just that.

With no known cause or cure, CJD takes the patient and family

completely by surprise. Time is precious when you see new changes

arising day after day in areas such as movement, speech and

cognition. ...Communication is just as affected in CJD as it is in

other forms of dementia. There have been cases recorded with

Broca's aphasia as the primary language problem, and also problems

associated with motor movements of speech such as apraxia. In CJD

cases displaying Broca's aphasia " word finding difficulties

progressed to one-word conversational speech, severe comprehension

problems and inability to repeat, read, or write " ( Ferrand & Bloom,

1997). Motor speech difficulties arising in the course of the

illness will also effect the speech of the client. "

http://webpages.marshall.edu/~adkins120/paper.html

Any thoughts?

=====

December 27, 2003

Hi -- I do think the possibility of a viral-related onset for

apraxia and other childhood disorders like autism, pdd, sensory

dysfunction is very real. If not the actual " cause " then certainly a

possibility for exacerbating the condition. I'm going to put a link

to a public message (meaning, you don't have to be a member of the

board to be able to read it) and see what Owens has to say

about selenium deficiencies and viruses. Selenium deficiency is a

problem in regards to mercury toxicity, too! The plot thickens...

/message/99793

W (btw, another reason why I do suspect viruses have a big role

in ASD is -- think of all the kids who were born to gulf war dads and

how a much higher than average percentage of those kids turned out to

have autism. I don't know if their kids have a higher than average

rate of apraxia or not. Those dads were exposed to viruses through

their vaccines and perhaps through their stay in the gulf).

> > " In Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (CJD), the situation is just that.

> With no known cause or cure, CJD takes the patient and family

> completely by surprise. Time is precious when you see new changes

> arising day after day in areas such as movement, speech and

> cognition. ...Communication is just as affected in CJD as it is in

> other forms of dementia. There have been cases recorded with

> Broca's aphasia as the primary language problem, and also problems

> associated with motor movements of speech such as apraxia. In CJD

> cases displaying Broca's aphasia " word finding difficulties

> progressed to one-word conversational speech, severe comprehension

> problems and inability to repeat, read, or write " ( Ferrand &

Bloom,

> 1997). Motor speech difficulties arising in the course of the

> illness will also effect the speech of the client. "

> http://webpages.marshall.edu/~adkins120/paper.html

>

> Any thoughts?

>

December 28, 2003

Hi ,

Ido not think BSE is directly related to our children, or is it just to

horrible to think about?

BUT i do think all the growth hormones and antibiotics pumped into these

poor animals does eventually have some effect on all of humans, obviously it

is always the weakest first, unborn children, young children etc. I am no

expert but i am sure it is mainly late teens to early twenties that die of

BSE. Jane

December 28, 2003

By the way, CJD, mad cow disease and another disease of sheep called

scrapie used to be called " slow viruses " because of the long

incubation period, etc. It is now known that the cause of these

diseases is not exactly a virus but a protein called a " prion " which is

spread through the food chain or through blood and replicated.

Just a technical point. It doesn't have much to say to the question.

Peace,

Kathy E.

On Dec 27, 2003, at 9:00 PM, merrywbee wrote:

>> With no known cause or cure, CJD takes the patient and family

>> completely by surprise. Time is precious when you see new changes

>> arising day after day in areas such as movement, speech and

>> cognition. ...Communication is just as affected in CJD as it is in

>> other forms of dementia.

December 28, 2003

Hi ,

Thanks for the insight. Well another interesting thought is that if

a virus can cause it...is another type of virus able to cure it...no

matter " what " caused it to begin with?

" Our goal is to develop a system that allows us to manipulate the

brain, " says DiLeone, who hopes that this strategy will reveal

insights about how the human brain works. Using mice, his laboratory

investigates the brain's response to rewarding stimuli, such as food

or drugs like amphetamines.

DiLeone and his colleagues inhibited a gene involved in the

production of dopamine in two groups of mice. They observed distinct

changes in the animals depending on which brain region was affected.

One group of mice developed motor difficulties like those seen in

mouse models of Parkinson's disease, which is associated with a loss

of dopamine. The other group had an abnormal response to

amphetamines.

The researchers used a technique known as RNA interference, in which

RNA is added to cells to inhibit a gene. The RNA, packaged inside

viruses, was delivered to mouse brain cells surgically. The effect

on the gene lasted about two months after the surgery. The results

appear in Nature Medicine. "

http://www.genomenewsnetwork.org/articles/12_03/brain_regions.shtml

(I never go by the fact they only mention conditions that have money

and power -if it's a neurological condition -no less a motor

planning disorder that it can cure -then it may be able to cure

apraxia as well as other motor planning disorders/neurological

conditions too -not too far out of the box to find this link!)

But unfortunately for every reason you can think of - this type of

research may not be done much -because while working on possible

cures -it opens the possibility to:

" Australian scientists have called for an international system to

oversee biological research that could be used by terrorists,

warning that it is increasingly easy to create deadly viruses

against which there is no protection....Several years ago, Professor

Ramshaw was a member of a team that accidentally found a way of

making mousepox more deadly while working on a contraceptive vaccine

for pest control. The Australian researchers found that adding a

particular mouse gene to the virus did not boost the immunity of

infected mice, as expected, but instead switched off a key part of

their immune system, making the virus lethal to 60 per cent of

vaccinated animals. "

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/12/28/1072546410497.html

=====

December 28, 2003

Hi Jane!

I also don't think there is a direct link any more than what you

posted, but we just don't know what happens when you mix all these

actions/toxins together. All we know is there is a dramatic rise in the past

10 years...

http://www.cherab.org/information/geiermd.html

so we have to imagine that whatever caused it was not

around as much over a decade ago...but we don't know for sure. For this

reason, I like to throw all thoughts out there just so we have them

on the table.

Yes it's all gross including all the growth hormones pumped in

(which is why I think kids today are maturing so much earlier)

But..another gross point is that cows were not meant to eat

themselves -not any other animal -they are herbivores.

" By Weise, USA TODAY

If you don't finish your steak at a restaurant, did you know the

leftovers might be dinner for a cow? Or that calves, instead of

drinking their mothers' milk, are fed formula made from cows' blood?

These practices, all perfectly legal, have come to light with the

discovery last month of North America's first homegrown case of " mad

cow " disease.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2003-06-09-beef-cover_x.htm

My one MD friend who happens to also be spiritual even though she is

a traditional MD -told me that it's a sin to eat your own species -

and cows were not meant to eat cows. (Humans who eat humans develop

kuru for example) So I looked it up and found these recent articles

on this.

" LONDON - Cannibalism by our prehistoric ancestors may have spread

deadly brain-wasting diseases and helped some populations to evolve

resistance to the diseases, British researchers said Thursday. "

http://www.cbc.ca/stories/2003/04/10/prions030410

" In the 16th century, Pope Innocent IV declared cannibalism a

sin....Another area of debate regarding cannibalism is whether it

may spread infectious diseases. Animal studies have suggested that

cannibals may be at greater risk for being infected by parasites and

diseases from members of their own species than from other prey. One

famous study associated human cannibalism with the spread of a fatal

viral disease called Kuru in highland New Guinea. Carlton Gadjusek

won the Nobel Prize in medicine for discovering a new category of

viruses called slow viruses, which include Kuru and Creutzfeldt-

Jakob (Mad Cow) disease. Part of Gadjusek's research was based on

epidemiological research he did with anthropologists that linked the

spread of a Kuru disease to the practice of funerary cannibalism.

According to Conklin, serious questions have been raised about the

validity of this association and she found no evidence of any

disease associated with Wari' cannibalism. "

http://exploration.vanderbilt.edu/news/news_cannibalism_pt2.htm

Just curious -Jane or anyone -have you read this book " Mad Cows and

Mother's Milk: The Perils of Poor Risk Communication " By

and Leiss?

( is assistant professor and director, Science and

Society Project, Universities of Guelph and Waterloo. Leiss

is Eco-Research Chair in Environmental Policy, School of Policy

Studies, Queen's University.)

It appears as if the book covers far more than just Mad Cow -but it

does cover this too:

" The first case study deals with the mad cow fiasco of 1996, one of

the most expensive and tragic examples of poor risk management in

the last twenty-five years. For ten years the British government

failed to acknowledge the possibility of a link between mad cow

disease and Creuzfeldt-Jakob disease, the human equivalent, until

increased scientific evidence and public pressure forced them to

take action, resulting in the slaughter of more than one million

cattle. "

http://www.mqup.mcgill.ca/book.php?bookid=873

Since you are in the UK -is this true that it took ten years?

=====

December 28, 2003

Just jumping in here about CJD/mad cow etc. About 9 years ago I took care of

a young woman named , she was 29 at the time, she had CJD, had 3 very

young children, all under the age of 8. As child she had been given growth

hormone injections because of small stature, without injections she probably

would

have been about 4'6 " after she was 5'. Anyhow her attending MD at the time told

me that she had probably gotten CJD from the hormone injections she received

about 15+ years prior. He researched it and said that she most likely got the

hormones from human cadavers infected with CJD. he said during the 70's that

was were growth hormones were gotten from. So as for the theory of getting

diseases from canabolism, perfect example of same species transfer of mind

wasting diseases. She eventually passed away about 6 months after I cared for

her,

it was terribly debilitating, and it occured over a 9 month time from

first symptoms till she died.

December 28, 2003

In a message dated 12/29/2003 3:24:37 AM Eastern Standard Time,

kearneysix@... writes:

me that she had probably gotten CJD from the hormone injections she received

You just made me stop and think about this. takes a shot a GH daily as

she is GH deficient. It is Human growth hormone. I will have to explore this

further.

Thanks for the heads up.

Dana

`s mom 4-ACC, SOD, HYDRO(SHUNTED), CHIARI(DECOMPRESSED),

SBO,GTUBE,SEIZURES,CDLS..and a VERY smart cookie!!!

ALSO, ALI 6, MIKE 15,JOHN 17, AND AMANDA 18

WIFE TO KEVIN-who is battling cancer

December 29, 2003

just to perhaps put your mind at ease, this girl received them i during the

70's, and then they recovered growth hormone from cadavers, unknown vagrants or

so that is what the attending told me. But further questioning from where it

is gotten is necessary, as the hormone must come from somewhere.

December 29, 2003

A friend's husband just died of mad cow disease here in KY right before

Christmas. He had taken some over the counter growth hormones. He died 21

days later in Louisville. Very scary stuff.

Re: [ ] Re: Mad Cow/apraxia links -are there any?

> Just jumping in here about CJD/mad cow etc. About 9 years ago I took care

of

> a young woman named , she was 29 at the time, she had CJD, had 3 very

> young children, all under the age of 8. As child she had been given growth

> hormone injections because of small stature, without injections she

probably would

> have been about 4'6 " after she was 5'. Anyhow her attending MD at the time

told

> me that she had probably gotten CJD from the hormone injections she

received

> about 15+ years prior. He researched it and said that she most likely got

the

> hormones from human cadavers infected with CJD. he said during the 70's

that

> was were growth hormones were gotten from. So as for the theory of getting

> diseases from canabolism, perfect example of same species transfer of

mind

> wasting diseases. She eventually passed away about 6 months after I cared

for her,

> it was terribly debilitating, and it occured over a 9 month time from

> first symptoms till she died.

December 29, 2003

Hi,

Just got to jump in here,

You just brought up a subject i was going to mention. In the early 70s ,

when i started school i had a school friend who was also given growth

hormones from about the age of 7. His home life was'nt great but at the time

he was a nice kid. Now to cut a long story short, by the time we finished

high school [16] He was out of control, he had a split personality, which if

you spent more than 5 minutes in his company you could actually watch him

change mood many times. We lost touch, last i heard he was enjoying the

hospitality of one of her majesties prisons for shooting at a PC for no

apparant reason.

It was only years later i read an article about growth hormone and how it is

produced, and how some people in europe[not UK] are going to take legal

action because they believe it has caused them serious problems in later

life. That was quite a few years ago now so maybe more research has been

done since then? I would like to know if anyone has any more info on this

subject. I really do believe it had something to do with my friends mental

demise.

Also a quick mention to , i totally agree with your friend the MD. To do

the things they have been doing with animals for the past 20 years is

disgusting and i am afraid its all about MONEY again. In the UK once again

its the people who cant fight back who are probably suffering from these

cheap infected cuts of meat. Because over the years it has been mainly the

schools, old peoples homes, hospitals ect who have had the worst of this

meat, myself included . Im no big hippy but to upset natures very fine

balance cannot be right, it doesnt take a genius to work it out, maybe the

people behind this scandal couldn't see past the £ £££ signs. A subject

that really gets my back up. Jane

December 29, 2003

This happened with several hundred children as I recall. Not very

comforting as I have to receive human blood products (antibodies) on a

weekly basis that are made from pooled plasma from several thousand

donors. And of course the government, medical establishment, etc. was

denying for some time that this was the cause, thereby increasing the

number of victims.

Peace,

Kathy E.

December 29, 2003

........ wrote......... " in the UK -is this true that it took ten years? "

I'll give you my very personal opinion but would ask other UKkies to post

as I would want a balanced view on the topic to be aired ( not just my

rather left-of-centre recollections) that the recent Mad Cow news Stateside

has brought back memories of ..........................a pretty deplorable

episode in our Food / Agricultural Industries.

Back to the point about the span of 10 years from 1st warnings to the

calamitous culling of the UK's beef herds - I would say that was a fair

assessment.

My late teens/early 20's I was heavily left-wing & devoured all

newspapers/literature attacking our conservative government of the day.

Certainly farming was one issue - driven by the supermarket giants ( who

bank rolled the Conservatives) & were felt to be getting away with murder

in pressing the farmers up against the wall. ( Old story - low prices to

farmers for produce hence cost-cutting measures by farms to keep afloat).

Alarm bells about the integrity of the meat stock and the dangers of an

imminent CJD outbreak were beginning to sound mid-80's.

I know I avidly followed this via 'The Guardian' - a centre-left national

daily newspaper who ran with this on-going health story even back then. I

will definitely try & find any archive links. Pre - www days so the paper

may not have posted past editorials but I'll have a look.

The sad things about this were multiple.

a) a major health concern was dismissed as leftie- alarmist propaganda being

heralded only by leftist professors from left wing universities (modern day

equivalent now is GM foods = New Age scaremongering)

the beef herds were slaughtered because a CJD carrier could not be

identified - so they all had to go. It be accurate to say that very few, in

total, of the beef stock in the UK had, or were a carrier, of CJD

c) many many farmers went to the wall - insurance cover didn't bail them out

I'll end by saying I think there is a lonely little 'plus' point to all this

& that is that the British general public are now sceptical of government

declarations ( there were many prior to the cull) - especially about the

integrity of something. It doesn't matter now if you're left or right wing

.. CJD changed for many the 'trust' , GM foods, the MMR are good examples

of that today.

I hope very much that the US manages to contain bovine CJD - whole tracts

of land were closed to inhibit the spread for a long time and those pyres

of burning cattle carcasses throughout the country were just dreadful to

witness. US beef farmers are going to be in for a very very hard time.

Let's just hope your scientists in your government testing centre doesn't

mistake bovine (cow) samples for ovine (sheep) samples like they did here