#683 MAD COW DISEASE & HUMANS

[Guest guest]

HI, FRIENDS,

This is one of those articles which may end up to have a serious impact on

our lives in the future, and looks like it will be a world-wide epidemic type

of health problem. It is also one of those things which I felt you would

want to be aware of. I have copied and pasted it for the benefit of those

people who are wary about downloading an attachment in an email.

If I have correctly interpreted this article then it suggests that the

possibility may exist for certain bovine glandular prions to transmit certain

interspecies encephalitis-type diseases to humans.

Ira

Subj: #683: MAD COW DISEASE AND HUMANS

Date: 01/22/2000 6:29:02 AM !!!First Boot!!!

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=======================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 son, 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

, Colorado and Cheyenne, Wyoming.

During 1999, CWD erupted among a herd of elk on the 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. 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 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. 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 Hiedingsfelder, a forensic pathologist in ville,

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

by Pringle of Eugene, Oregon. Sources of information are

cited at www.mad-cow.org.

[2] R. 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. , " Rare, Animal-Borne Disease a Medical

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

GLOBE December 12, 1999, pg. C26.

[4] , " 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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