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Mad Cow Disease Making sense of the headlines

Mad Cow Disease Making sense of the headlines. by Trevor Murdock. Outline. What is Mad Cow Disease? What is CJD? What has happened so far? North America - Status North America - Signs of Mad Cow Disease?. What is Mad Cow Disease?. Transmissible Spongiform Encephalophy (TSE)

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Mad Cow Disease Making sense of the headlines

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  1. Mad Cow DiseaseMaking sense of the headlines by Trevor Murdock

  2. Outline • What is Mad Cow Disease? • What is CJD? • What has happened so far? • North America - Status • North America - Signs of Mad Cow Disease?

  3. What is Mad Cow Disease? • Transmissible Spongiform Encephalophy (TSE) • Scrapie - Sheep • BSE - Cows • Kuru - Cannibals

  4. What is CJD? • CJD - Humans • brain-wasting disorder: blindness, dementia, loss of motor functions • natural occurrence 1 in a million • average age 63 • vCJD - Humans, transmissible • from beef (or other meat/animal products)? • onset at earlier age • incubation depends on exposure

  5. What has happened so far? • Britain • Europe • Government (in)action • protect cattle industry (at expense of citizens! & history repeated with FMD) • Media attention • also focus on cattle industry more than people

  6. North America - Status • ruminants still eating parts of ruminants (scrapie infected sheep are fed to pigs) • 13 percent of 397 US feed mills that process meat and bone meal have no system for preventing products from being mixed!!! • spray-dried blood products in feed • gelatin?, dairy?, bovine-derived products, including glandular extracts, collagen, glucosamine and chondroitin • virtually no testing !!! - Italy only found BSE when it started testing

  7. North America - Signs of Mad Cow Disease? • Apr 1996 - Nov 1997, NE Texas (~1 million): 8 CJD cases (younger than average). From the Texas Dept of health as quoted by Howard Lyman in Mad Cowboy. • Pittsburgh autopsies of 54 patients died of dementia, 3 of them had CJD. From Neurology, 1989, 39 (1): pp. 76-69 as quoted by Howard Lyman in Mad Cowboy. • Alzheimer’s ??? - similar symptoms

  8. Canada • cattle fed to cattle in Canada until 1997 - good chance of BSE +ve offspring in food chain NOW • 11 cattle from Britain got into Canada’s food chain in 1993 (according to a European Union scientific committee) • 2 blood donors had died of CJD in 1995 • Canada not in lowest risk rank (European Commission report 2000)

  9. Summary • Mad Cow Disease risk is real • Cannot wait for government to protect the food supply (deny human risk as long as possible, protect industry) • Many questionable practices remain • Increased exposure --> increased risk and reduced incubation period • Best protection: reduce --> eliminate beef, meat, dairy, gelatin, etc.

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