Rense.com Cattle Mutilations Explained? End Of The Beef Industry? By Jeff Rense 12-3-2

The following discussion is meant to open the door to new research and earnest 'official' scientific scrutiny.

CJD, sCJD, nvVJD, vCJD, CWD Mad Deer Disease, BSE Mad Cow Disease, TSE, Alzheimer's and so on are all names of the SAME basic 100% fatal disease conditions caused by 'misfolded proteins' known as prions.

After studying these diseases and their frightening progress over the years, it is now clear they are all directly related to one another. These misfolded proteins seat themselves in the host brain and immediately begin to turn it into hole-filled sponge-like material.

The only appreciable difference between prions seems to be which part of the brain is turned to mush.

In the only published research of its type, the brains of approximately 65 Alzheimer's victims were analyzed. About 15 of the brains showed death by 'CJD'... classic prion disease...and not what is called 'Alzheimer's' Disease.

The point: if about 25% of Alzheimer's deaths were caused by CJD, where is it coming from?? Of course, there has never been a single, solitary case of Mad Cow disease here in the US...so cow meat couldn't possibly be the source...

What of Alzheimer's itself? What is at work destroying the brain? Prions? YES. Alzheimer's is marked by an accumulation of amyloid, an abnormally folded protein which forms fibrils. Fibrils are abnormal strings of proteins clumped together; the fibrils accumulate because they are difficult for the body's natural defenses to remove.

Here are two items from an excellent overview of prion diseases at: http://www.biology.hawaii.edu/Bio406/files/BIO406_lec_04.PDF

"Degenerative diseases of the nervous system associated with amyloid amyloid formation are frequently caused by caused by misfolded peptides (proteins)."

Neuronal degeneration associated with amyloid plaque formation:

* Alzheimer's disease

* Prion diseases

Indestructible Prions

These 'rogue' proteins - prions - are virtually indestructible. Hundreds scientific reports, studies and papers describe how prions cannot be frozen to death, do not respond to ANY antibiotics or chemical treatments and withstand temperatures of approximately 1000 degrees F.

Autoclaves, upon which medicine and dentistry rely to sterilize all reusable invasive instruments, operate at around 250 degrees...far too low to even approach destroying these killer proteins - which one leading and extremely perplexed British scientist recently described, only half in jest, as not being from this planet. There may be more truth to his offhand remark than he realized.

Mutilations And Monitoring

CJD/BSE prions are clearly being spread throughout the environment. We are now going to state, with reasonable conviction, that prions are linked to the mystery of widespread cattle, horse and many other types of animal mutilations which have been a near constant phenomenon since the late 1960's.

Is 'someone' monitoring the spread of prions in our gravely-declining environment by taking tissue samples from these animals? I now believe that to likely be at least part of the answer.

We do know that human tonsils, when biopsied, have been found to contain prions in infected patients. Further, a Nobel Laureate has just announced that prions have also now been found in the MUSCLE tissue of infected mice...but in lower concentrations than brain tissue. (see story below). How many prions does it take to become infected?

Human Pharmaceuticals Found In Some Mutilated Cattle

Most mutilated cattle, horses, etc, evidence the same precise wounds to the head, reproductive and rectal areas. There are always organs missing, most often the eyes, tongue and the rectum. As is well-known, the wounds aren't 'cuts' but are laser-like 'incisions' done at estimated temperatures of close to 400 degrees F. There is never blood at the incision sites or much, if any remaining in the corpse. It is also reported that back muscles of the animals often show internal bleeding...indicative of something that occurred from above them. Many of the dead animals also show signs of having been dropped to the ground...with broken bones and horns shoved deeply into the soil.

Researcher and former police officer Ted Oliphant visited this program on several occasions a number of years ago. He revealed in detail how, during his extensive cattle mutilation investigations in Alabama beginning in 1992, traces of human pharmaceuticals such as anti-coagulants and pain killers were found in some of the mutilated cattle. That would suggest humans were involved in SOME of the Alabama cases.

If humans were involved in some of the mutilations, they removed for apparent testing the same basic tissues and organs that are universally-reported to be taken during these mysterious cases.

But what about the rest of the mutilations in North and South America and elsewhere...going back nearly four decades... and including the very recent deaths of scores of cattle, horses, llamas and wild boar, etc, in Argentina? Many of those cases were accompanied by unambiguous sightings of UFOs by dozens of eyewitnesses.

And how about human mutilations? In one South American case - documented with photos and complete autopsy - an adult male was found in Brazil in September, 1988, will all the hallmark signs of classic cattle mutilation. Brazilian police reported there were at least a dozen other similar unsolved human mutilation deaths at that time.

A logical conclusion to entertain might be that both ET 'visitors' and humans are monitoring the spread of prions now. It is a reasonable guess that clandestine tissue monitoring might also going on at slaughterhouses around the US.

Again: How many prions does it take to become infected?

No More Fully-Sterile Invasive Medical/Dental Instruments

We DO know that in the ONLY study ever done (or released to the public...) on invasive, reusable medical (tonsillectomy) instruments in the UK, over 50% of the instruments were found to be contaminated with deadly prions AFTER REPEATED STERILIZATIONS.

That particularly 'bad news' story disappeared VERY quickly from the UK mass media.

About the time the tonsillectomy instrument story was published, a new UK study was announced that thousands of tonsils taken from UK children and young people would be tested for prions.

To our knowledge, RESULTS of that study WERE NEVER MADE PUBLIC.

Beside the mystery tonsil tests, and tests on human brains of the deceased, no prion tests of any other human tissues have been noted in the media or mentioned in scientific reports. No prion tests of human tongues, rectal tissues, eyes, or any internal organs.

Another news story also appeared proposing that a routine biopsy of tonsil tissues in humans might be the best and quickest way to screen for prion disease. That story, too, came by once...and then vanished.

Prions, Lies And Death

Note - the first deer deaths from CWD occurred in an isolated heard in the US in the mid-1960's...something few recall. Note also, that the first 'official' animal mutilation befell 'Skippy' the horse in Colorado in the late 1967 and there have been over 10,000 reported cattle mutilations since then.

And what about those with HIV/AIDS? It is a fact that 50% of those who become HIV positive show almost immediate signs of compromised brain activity...commonly-called 'AIDS dementia'. Late stage AIDS is almost invariably marked with massive dementia. Is there a correlation between prion disease and the dementia in AIDS patients?

And remember all the lies...for years...from the British government about Mad Cow and the risks to humans? The British government finally, formally apologized to its people but only after over 100 had died from the 'human form' of mad cow prion disease. And how many Britons became infected because of those lies and are incubating prions right now but are not yet showing symptoms? Is this why the results of the tonsil biopsy tests were never, to our knowledge, released to the public?

Remember how the British officials first promised there was no danger from eating beef...but that the public should simply not eat beef brains? Then the government said the consumer should avoid both brain AND spinal tissues. And then, at long last, the British government banned ALL beef 'on the bone'. That simple progression of common sense took years to occur.

Meanwhile, about four years ago, the British government ordered all optometrists and other professionals fitting patients for contact lenses to immediately STOP USING REUSABLE CONTACT LENSES for fitting in patients' eyes. Why do you suppose that happened?

And then there was the cosmetic surgery clinic which had to notify a number of successive patients that an earlier patient turned out to have CJD and that they all might be infected with fatal prion disease.

Also, if you remember, there were patients at a birthing hospital in the UK who had to be told they might have contracted mad cow disease after a patient who had C section died from the disease. Not much information on that situation was forthcoming either. It came out once and then...gone! Never to be followed up. We wonder how many of those women and their babies contracted the disease. We wonder if the baby of the mad cow deceased mother contracted it as well.

And in that we now know prions are also found in muscle tissue - in addition to brain and spinal tissues - how can we RULE OUT the presence of these TINY killer proteins - or the agent that causes them to misfold - in the blood supply? Answer: we cannot.

"Everyone Should Be Tested"

And now comes a formal call by Dr. Stanley Pruisner that EVERYONE in

Britain be tested for prion disease and infectivity.

Here is that story: Top Nobel Scientist Wants ALL Britons Tested For CJD Nobel Laureate Warns Of Prions Found In Animal Muscle How Many Prions Does It Take To Become Infected? By Richard Woodman 12-2-2

LONDON (Reuters Health) - The scientist who won the Nobel prize for discovering prions, the abnormal proteins implicated in mad cow disease, has called for all Britons to be tested for the deadly brain ailment after finding surprisingly high prion levels in the muscles of mice infected with a similar illness, British newspapers reported Sunday.

Professor Stanley Prusiner of the University of California, San Francisco, told the Independent that the finding raised the "obvious worry" that cows and sheep could be similarly affected. Mad cow disease, or bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), has been linked to a similar illness in humans who ate contaminated meat. Sheep can carry a related illness called scrapie.

Until now, levels of prions in infected cow and sheep meat and muscle tissue were always believed to be low enough not to pose a significant risk of transmission and the emphasis was to remove the brain and spinal cord, which harbor much higher levels.

However, according to the newspaper, new tests being pioneered at the University of California are far more sensitive and have discovered higher concentrations of prions in muscle than have previously been found.

While describing the findings as significant, Prusiner stressed that the levels are still 100-fold less than those found in brains.

He called for testing of everyone in Britain to establish the true extent of variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD), which has killed 117 people since 1995.

"A million cattle infected with BSE entered the British food chain so almost everyone in the country will have been exposed to the infectious prion proteins that cause variant CJD. Every Briton should be tested so that if they are developing the disease it can be spotted before symptoms appear," he told the Sunday Times.

Prusiner was in Britain to discuss research into the disease.

Last week scientists at University College London reported that research on mice suggested BSE caused the "sporadic" strain of CJD, as well as variant CJD, which, if confirmed, could significantly increase the number of potential victims. 

_____

From Patricia Doyle, PhD

dr_p_doyle@hotmail.com

12-3-2

Jeff - This is AMAZING! Simply amazing. When Dr. Pruisner, foremost Prionologist in the WORLD, suggests all Britons get tested for prion disease, you KNOW we have a crisis situation. I think people in the US need to be tested as well. It is not simply a matter of people eating deer meat or CWD infected meat. Many of these people who ate Deer, Elk or Moose in the US and potentially-infected, could have exposed OTHERS via blood donation or sexual contact, etc. When such a powerful main stream scientist sounds the warning regarding prion disease, this indicates much more of a problem then the CDC, the government, or anyone ever realized...or admitted. Combine this to the UK scientist who likened prion to 'alien' pathogen and an alarm should sound in the minds of all reasonable, rational people. Anyone who eats MEAT, or meat additive products, is playing Russian Roulette.

_____

Mad Deer, Elk, Moose...And How Many Other Animals?

At Rense.com, I have been carefully tracking the current, exploding,100% deadly CWD Mad Deer prion epidemic as it races across the US. Latest reports show it to be in at least 14 states and Canada. Tens of thousands of deer and elk heads have been brought to storage sites and locations to be sawn open and the brains to be checked for CWD prion infection.

Efforts announced by at least two states to go into a large designated areas where CWD deer have been found and to shoot all the deer to death to 'stop' the spread of CWD/Mad Deer disease are absurd.

No one knows exactly how Mad Deer/CWD prions are being spread through the deer population. The best guess is saliva and body fluids...BUT no one has - or can - rule out aerosolized transmission. No one knows how CWD found its way into farmed, isolated elk herds in the US and Canada, either.

There was one rather bizarre government explanation a few years ago which attempted to explain the outbreak of CWD in deer as deriving directly from foraging deer on open cattle ranches becoming infected from EATING CATTLE FEED which was dumped in the fields for the cattle, especially during the winter months.

Amazingly, the public bought this lame excuse with nary a whimper. NO ONE bothered to ask about the CATTLE!

Of course, there is no Mad Cow/BSE in the U.S. according to the Beef and Dairy Industries and the USDA. But just for speculation, let's assume there were a number of cases of mad cow discovered here in the US, what do you suppose would happen to the mega-billion dollar beef and dairy industries? Hint: remember what happened in Great Britain. Howard Lyman (madcowboy.com) regularly speculates on the issue of possible BSE in US cattle. For speaking his piece, he was named in a major lawsuit with Oprah by the beef industry. Howard and Oprah prevailed.

Keep in mind the incubation period for Mad Cow/BSE can be 5 years and longer... maybe even up to 20 years. Here in the US, beef cattle are slaughtered long before their fifth birthdays. Another note to remember: so-called 'downer cattle' - thousands and thousands of sick and dying animals...are routinely sent to slaughter. And no effort is made to check for BSE.

Back to the catastrophic slaughter of animals in the UK during the height of the Mad Cow disaster. How did the Brits get rid of the prions in the infected animal cadavers? They either buried the bodies in vast pits or they burned them in huge pyres. The corpses in the pits have largely all decomposed by now. Many express little doubt prions have made their way into nearby water tables, streams and rivers. In the case of the massive burning of corpses, there is little doubt prions were carried off into the environment in the mountains of smoke and vapors rising from the flames and fire.

What happens to road kill...from rabid raccoons to possibly CWD deer and scores of other animal types? Answer: they are picked up and usually taken to rendering plants, along with millions of bodies of pet cats and dogs, to be made into PET FOOD and commercial and garden fertilizer products. Did you know many veterinarians report increased numbers of dementia-like illnesses in dogs and cats?

Back to the estimated 200,000 deer and elk heads now - or soon to be - sitting in storage waiting to be sawed into to extract the brains for analysis. What will the government agencies do with all of these heads? Answer: they will probably burn them in crematories...and, yes, expel a certain amount of prions into the environment with each and every CWD positive head or brain they immolate.

_____

From Patricia Doyle, PhD

12-3-2

Jeff - I have to wonder if we are seeing prion disease in fish and water animals, reptiles. Remember, the reptiles that died in a 4-year span in Florida showed 'neurological symptoms.' This may be prion infection and NOT WNV. The research needs to be ongoing to find out what killed or is killing HUNDREDS of alligators. So, are other forms of life prone to prion infection? I believe the answer is YES. What about the Brant geese? We never found out what killed all of those thousands of Brant Geese last November and January. They died of symptoms which sounded very much like prion disease. If, as most of us believe, mutated prions have entered the environment, they may also be in our water and even in the air thanks to crematories. As you mentioned, the funeral crematorium could be sending out mutant prions. Birds pass over and voila. People living adjacent or even driving by with the windows done would potentially be exposed. So far, no one is testing to find out how many prions are sent skyward when burning a CJD corpse...

_____

And what about human cadavers of the people who die from 'Alzheimer's' or those who are actually diagnosed with CJD and then die?

Did you know brain biopsies are refused to patients suspected of having CJD? Did you know dozens of brain surgery patients have sued a major hospital because a prior patient was found to have had CJD and that hospital had to warn all successive patients that they may now have CJD, too? -- Because the hospital knows autoclaving reusable, invasive surgical instruments cannot sterilize them of prions.

Dentists are perhaps the most adamant about refusing to face the fact that THEIR surgical/invasive/reusable instruments might also NOT be sterilizable from prion contamination. Want to see an unhappy dentist? Take this material into the office and ask him or her to read through it. You'll get the standard line: "If there was a problem, the ADA would notify us immediately." Or, "Until they change the sterilization protocols, we will stay with the official guidelines." And if you don't like it, feel free to find another dentist...

For more than the past four years, I have been demanding a complete cessation of the reuse of invasive surgical and dental instruments. This should be considered a national priority.

Here is a recent note to Dr. Patricia Doyle, PhD and her response:

From: jr@rense.com

To: Patricia Doyle, PhD

dr_p_doyle@hotmail.com

Date: Sun, 1 Dec 2002

It is well past time we need to begin putting all of these prion diseases in the same 100% FATAL basket and stop labeling them differently...CJD, BSE, CWD, etc. This is a deception and it must end.

As we know, prions are essentially indestructible. They are a POTENTIAL mechanism by which much of the world population, human and animal, could be reduced. One of the top UK scientists said prions seem like an 'ALIEN DISEASE' recently.

From Patricia Doyle, PhD

dr_p_doyle@hotmail.com

Date: Mon, 02 Dec 2002

Hello, Jeff - I totally agree with you on the fact that prion disease is the same disease, nuances of each just affect different parts of the brain. Whether it affects or "spongifies" the cerebellum, brain stem or cebral cortex differentiates the name. The fact that the CDC and others don't recognize it makes no difference -- the disease mechanism factor is the same: the prion.

I look at it like computer "programming." Someone may have figured out how to "program" a prion or protein to misfold, and learned how that 'rogue' protein will affect the brain. That is a pretty tall order, even for our current advances in biotechnology...but for an alien culture, it could be child's play.

Jeff, do you know if there has ever been any research on those who have been abducted? I would look for changes in spinal fluid and brain tissue. I am wondering what percent of those who claim abduction, and I believe that most are telling the truth about being abducted, have brain and spinal nuance changes. What a great research project that would make.

Quite possibly, programming prion mutation, is, as the British researcher put it, is 'alien.' I doubt if this type of research will go foward in the prion community as most, like Dr. Fred Cohen of UCSF, call those of us with such opinions 'uncredible.' I have written to him on several occassions and was not given much consideration or even professional courtesy.

I do believe, and so mentioned on your program, that cattle/animal mutilations might have some bearing on the current prion disease outbreaks which are of a mass epidemic now in the North

American deer and elk populations.

Another thing I am wondering is if the chemtrails have any bearing on the spread. I wonder if any of the chemtrail investigators have tested for prion or synthetic proteins or proteins of any form in the air after heavy spraying has occurred? Just one of many possibilities.

Perhaps, "someone" either of this earth - or not - has decided to wipe out industralized first world countries? Look at those coming foward with this disease, US, UK, Europe, Japan, Australia. I don't see cases, yet, in Africa, or Latin America. Of course, they already have raging HIV/AIDS epidemics. So, we have to then ask, why?

There have been several large mutilation cases now in South and Central amercia, and it will be interesting to note if any of those countries begin to have mad cow, mad deer, mad anything disease.

Humans are very close to making this planet unlivable via pollution and raping of natural resources. Is this the environment fighting back?

Are there those forces or entities from other universes who want to void the planet Earth?

One sure way to find out if prion disease is connected with alien abductions of humans and cattle mutilations is to study the abductiees and their families for the next 20+ years. Also, one must test animals in the areas of mutilations.

It is so obvious that these "alien prions" are already in our food supply. How anyone can continue to eat meat, either deer meat or butcher meat, is beyond me.

It would also be advisable to monitor mad animal/mad people disease in areas of heavy chemtrail activity. I do not subscribe to the idea that chemtrails are the work of the Govt. trying to immunize people against biowar diseases. Immunization could not be successful administered by falling chemtrails. Too many variables. Heat, sunlight, wind dispersals, one's duration in the outdoors etc etc. I think they are more then weather control. I think it is very sinister and testing of chemtrail materials needs to include protein identification.

Well, this is just my two cents worth. I agree with you that prion disease is ONE disease (depending on programming) that affects different parts of the brain. There might even be some unidentified human factor that predisposes one to which part of the brain would spongify.

You are the only voice that has called attention to prion disease and recognized it for what it is, an epidemic that will eventually kill millions if not all on the planet.

Patty

And Another Note From Dr. Doyle

Hello, Jeff - Yes, these are all things that the CDC and others did not consider, or if they did, they did not want the information made public. Take this one step further, what about the animal crematories for Plum Island, Ames Iowa, and Ft. Detrick, etc.?

We know that there were 375 Fresian sheep from Vermont that were carrying nvTSE. Most were sent to APHIS in Newberg at Stewart Airbase to the quarantine center for "slaughter" and incineration. 21 went to Plum Island. Doubtful that any of the 21 have survived. So, where do Plum Island specimens go? The Plum will NOT answer that question clearly. Ms. Sally Hays does a two-step around that one.

At one point in time, I think it was a year or two ago, carcasses and exposed barrals were seen coming out of the pits on Plum Island. The PR people said that this was a temporary situation as the burial and dump sites were being exhumed and taken off the island. So, where does all of this red hot stuff go?

Jeff, I stated last month on your program that we have not yet begun to hear about CWD. Very very soon, we will find out that other species of animals have a prionlike disease. We have a ticking timebomb here and we are counting down to zero.

If you remember I stated on the program that I felt that Chronic Wasting Disease and nvBSE showed up about the same time that cattle mutilations became frequent. Are the cattle mutilations actually a test, searching for prions? or are they more sinister? Has "someone" been using animal tissue to develop prion disease.

It would be interesting if someone were to research the numbers of cases of CJD, sCJD, GSS, Alzheimer Disease, etc in humans around funeral and animal crematoriums. Also, it would be interesting to study the numbers of cases of BSE, nvTSE in the UK and Europe in relation to nearby crematoriums. I wonder if the numbers are highest near these places?

Finding numbers of human cases will be difficult as Alzheimer cases, I believe, are not reportable to the CDC. Still, it would be a great study and one that needs to be commenced.

Patty

Patricia A. Doyle, PhD

Please visit my "Emerging Diseases" message board at:

http://www.clickitnews.com/emergingdiseases/index.shtml

So, there you have the latest on the prion threat. For further research and data,

please visit the Mad Cow/CJD DataPage on the left side of the Rense.com home page.

-- Jeff Rense

12-3-2

Comment

From Diane Harvey

merak@sedona.net

12-4-2

Dear Jeff and Patty:

This is a riveting piece of work.You are performing an incredibly valuable service in bringing this catastrophe to the attention of people who would otherwise be left in the dark. Many of us who have been following this story through your efforts over the years have long thought along these same general lines as well, in regard to the separate names for prion reactions being deliberately misleading. Yet without your strict regular accountings, I suspect that most of us would retain only a very hazy understanding of how this terrible scourge is unfolding. It would certainly not be at all surprising if the vast majority of us harbor these deadly time-bombs by now, through one means or another.

If I may, for what it's worth, I'd like to add a comment to the concept of there being a chemtrail connection in this mess. Certainly, the world is so frankly bizarre right now that even the most skeptical person is learning to think twice before dismissing any possibility. But based on all that we have seen in the way of research, I still think that chemtrails show the earmarks of being an all-too-stupidly-human operation. I do not discount the presence of aliens on this planet in the least. It is too illogical to suppose that so many reasonable and normal people would suddenly be taken with the peculiar desire to fabricate such abysmal stories as we read and hear about. And no one untampered with by such creatures, either directly or by their astonishingly successful public relations campaign, could possibly doubt their hideously parasitical nature. An alien species which would perpetrate such abominable abuses of human free will speaks loudly and clearly for itself through its own actions, despite all sophisticated efforts at disguise. It is an enormous tragedy that so many become so confused, and can no longer see the blazingly obvious in this slow stealthy nightmare. But then, that so many do not see what any human retaining free will can see is the entire point of what the Grays are doing here.

Yet chemtrails are delivered by ordinary aircraft, and there is sufficient information available to strongly suggest that there are several overweeningly egotistical human purposes potentially at work here. It's true that no one knows for sure exactly what they are doing, except the criminally ignorant and criminally secretive authorities themselves. But this operation is one which leads seamlessly from many previous and lesser versions of similar insanities. There is a great deal of human precedent for such a monstrous effort, and plenty of the usual mad-scientist variety of scientific research to back it up. It is painful to recall that science was originally the noble act of tracing the subtle workings of cause and effect in nature. And that now it consists mainly of murderously vain human attempts to override those very same laws of cause and effect.

Chemtrails still look to me, after all this time, to be a disastrous attempt to alter the basic chemistry of the atmosphere in order to make it "serve" new forms of Prize Idiot Human technology. Whether the supposed primary goal is an ozone-mitigation folly, the implementation of incalculably dangerous new weapons, new communications systems, or a mixture of all of these and more- we can only guess, but we don't know for sure. What we do know is that the chemfogs we breathe are poisonous, and that a number of cowardly humans in responsible positions know this, and are lying about it straight to our faces.

My guess would be that cattle mutilations, if connected to prion investigation (and that's a very intelligent supposition), might be to see how their hoped-for real estate and human and animal chattel are holding up under human degenerative practices. They have long shown intense solicitousness for the health of that which they clearly wish to own and operate as soon as possible.

Whatever the intricate truth of all this turns out to be, without places on the internet to look for it, we would be out of luck. What we would do without people like you, who are willing to go to such lengths in order to research, store, and share information, is unthinkable.

Thank you, as always. The worse it gets, the more valuable the lights in the gloom.

Diane

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Mad Cow Time Bomb 27-May-2004

Britain may be facing a Mad Cow time bomb. New research suggests that up to 4,000 people there unknowingly carry the human form of mad cow disease. Some may already be passing it on through blood transfusions and contaminated surgical instruments, so the disease may continue to kill for decades. 

Pathologists examined more than 12,500 tonsil and appendix specimens from hospital operations and found evidence of the prion for Creutzfeld Jakob disease, the human form of Mad Cow, in three of them. If these statistics are the same for the whole of Britain, it means that about 3,800 people carry the deadly prion and don't know it. 

"I find these results very concerning," says Dr. John Collinge. "Our experience is that looking at appendix samples will underestimate the true picture. In addition, no test is 100% effective, and you don't know at what stage in the incubation period the test will be positive." 

Just because people may be carrying the prion, this does not mean they will inevitably get the disease, but it does mean they can pass it on to others. People with a particular genetic pattern are most susceptible to the disease, and so far all the U.K. deaths come from this group; however, others may get it after a longer incubation period. Cases of kuru, a prion disease affecting cannibals in Papua New Guinea who eat infected brains, continue to appear 50 years after cannibalism ended. 



Strange Skin in New York 02-Jun-2004

A skin infection that is resistant to all but the most powerful antibiotics and can be passed by touch has moved from New York City hospitals out into the streets. Dr. Howard Grossman says, "Usually with infections you need a break in the skin to pass it. Not with this. It gets through unbroken skin with casual contact." 

Sam Smith writes in the New York Post that it can cause abscesses, tissue loss, amputation or even death in severe cases. Doctors at some clinics are seeing one new case a week, compared to one every two months a year ago. Dr. Dawn Harbatkin says, "This is something we should be concerned about." 

A patient named Steven caught the superbug last year. It started as a pimple on his leg that grew larger and became painful. The infection didn't respond to antibiotics and started moving towards his groin. He says, "The fact it wasn't responding [to drugs] and it was moving up that way was terrifying. It was eating up tissue." He eventually had to be hospitalized and ended up taking an antibiotic that cost $100 per pill. Doctors think he may have caught it at the gym. 

As if that isn't enough of a horror story, Kieran Crowley writes in the New York Post that a severed human hand mysteriously dropped out of the sky onto the deck of a boat in Long Island last weekend. Detective Sgt. John Azzata says the boat owner "heard a noise, goes out to check and finds the hand on the rear deck of the boat. At this point, we don't have a clue where it came from. It's a mystery." 



WHO Confirms 19 Cases of Ebola in Southern Sudan

Tue May 25, 6:34 AM ET

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NAIROBI (Reuters) - Nineteen cases of the deadly Ebola (news - web sites) virus have been confirmed in southern Sudan and five of the victims have already died from the infection, the World Health Organization (news - web sites) (WHO) said on Tuesday. 

The WHO office for southern Sudan said health authorities in Yambio county in Western Equatoria province had reported patients suffering the symptoms associated with Ebola, which can kill up to 90 percent of its victims. "I can confirm that there are 19 reported cases of Ebola hemorrhagic fever in Yambio county as of this morning," Abdullahi Ahmed, head of the WHO southern Sudan office, told Reuters. "It could be more than this," he said. "We just don't know at this point." 

The WHO said four patients were in isolation and health workers were monitoring 120 people believed to have had close contact with the victims. 

The WHO has enlisted the help of other international health organizations, local churches and agencies to help support patients, create public awareness and control the outbreak. 

"We have health surveillance teams on the ground and we are watching the situation very carefully," said Ahmed. "I think the virus is contained for the moment and we have no reason to believe that it has spread outside Yambio county," he added. 

Ahmed said it was not known where the virus had originated and how it had come into Sudan. 

WHO spokesman Dick Thompson, speaking in Geneva, said "The epidemiological investigation is ongoing, we don't know the source of it yet or the complete extent." 

He said the medical aid group Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders (news - web sites)) was building an isolation ward to quarantine patients. 

Ebola, first identified in Sudan in 1976, starts with a high fever and headache and can lead to massive internal bleeding. It is passed on by infected body fluids and is one of the deadliest and most feared diseases in the world. 

Two separate outbreaks in Congo Republic killed about 150 people last year. 

(Additional reporting by Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva) 


Researcher Dies After Accidental Ebola Jab


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May 26, 11:22 am ET 

MOSCOW (Reuters) - A researcher in a heavily guarded Siberian virology laboratory died after pricking herself with a syringe containing the deadly Ebola virus, a spokeswoman from the lab said Tuesday.

"It was an accident or an unlucky coincidence. Her hand just slipped and she jabbed herself," the spokeswoman said.

Ebola begins with a high fever and can lead to massive internal bleeding. It kills between 50 and 90 percent of victims, depending on the strain of the virus, for which there is no known cure. It is one of the world's most feared diseases.

Most outbreaks have occurred in Africa, far from the Siberian lab where the senior technician was experimenting on guinea pigs when the accident happened on May 5. She died two weeks later.

Set deep in Siberia, a four-hour flight from Moscow, the state-owned Vector research center at Novosibirsk does research into deadly diseases such as SARS and anthrax.

Along with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, it is one of only two places on earth with official stockpiles of smallpox, which killed around 300 million people last century.

After the accident, the woman was hospitalized in a ward specially equipped to contain virulent diseases. Anyone who came into contact with her was put under observation for three weeks.

Her name was not released at her family's request.

A spokeswoman for Russia's Health Ministry said the government was satisfied enough had been done to prevent an outbreak. 


Thousands may have human form of mad cow disease

Fri May 21, 5:56 AM ET


LONDON (AFP) - Some 3,800 people in Britain could be harbouring the human form of mad cow disease without knowing it, government-funded research suggests. 

Scientists who examined 12,674 stored appendix and tonsil samples said they had identified three bearing signs of the agent that causes variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (news - web sites) (vCJD). 

Applying their findings to the entire population of the United Kingdom, which is 60 million, they estimated that about 3,800 people would test positive for the illness. 

Some 141 people are known to have died in Britain from vCJD, a spongy deterioration of the brain causing personality change, loss of body function, and eventually death. 

Scientists think the findings -- which at first sight appeared to be at odds with declining rates of vCJD -- might indicate that people can carry the disease without developing symptoms. 

They would still be able to spread the disease to others, however, via contaminated surgical instruments, blood transfusions or organ donation. 

"Our findings need to be interpreted with caution, but cannot be discounted," said David Hilton, of Derriford Hospital in Plymouth, southern England, who led the study published in the Journal of Pathology. 

Fears for the safety of British beef emerged in 1986 when mad cow disease, or bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE (news - web sites)), was first discovered in a cow on a farm in West Sussex. 

It was only 10 years later, however, that the government announced that a probable link had been established between BSE and vCJD. 

The latest research involved examining thousands of appendix and tonsil samples removed during routine operations and stored at hospitals. Most were from people aged 20 to 29, the peak age for developing vCJD. 

The scientists looked for accumulations of the abnormal prion protein molecules believed to trigger both BSE and vCJD. 

One positive appendix sample was the subject of much publicity when preliminary results from the study were released in 2002. 

The two others, also from appendix operations, show an unusual pattern of prion accumulation unlike that seen in known vCJD cases. 

But the scientists have carried out tests which appear to discount the possibility that they are "false positives". 

Despite a slight jump last year, the numbers of vCJD cases have appeared to be on the decline. But experts cannot be sure more will not emerge in the future as the disease reaches the end of its incubation period in people with different genetic make-ups. 

Professor James Ironside, senior pathologist at the National CJD Surveillance Unit in Edinburgh, who took part in the research, said: "There would seem to be more positives than you would expect given the known number of vCJD cases and the fact that they seem to be declining." 

"That may be because of genetic differences and susceptibility, but it may also be that you can have a sub-clinical infection which never progresses to produce symptoms -- a 'carrier state'." 

"I think the findings do have to be taken seriously," added Ironside. "Generally, one has to be cautious about interpreting these data -- but they may indicate that there are people who are not infected in the normal way but could represent a source of infection." 

A Department of Health spokesman said: "There is still much to learn about vCJD and this study is important for future research." 

"The results reinforce the need for a continued precautionary approach to minimise people's exposure to BSE and vCJD. The Department of Health has already put in place measures to reduce any risk of possible transmission of the disease via blood products and surgical instruments." 


HIV Outbreak in Calif. Porn Films Contained

Wed May 12, 8:30 PM ET

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By Jill Serjeant 

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The lucrative Los Angeles porn film industry, crippled by an HIV (news - web sites) outbreak last month, lifted a self-imposed moratorium on Wednesday after half the actors placed under quarantine were given the all-clear. 

"We feel very confident that there will be no more HIV outbreaks. We have contained this outbreak," said Sharon Mitchell, director of the Adult Industry Medical Healthcare Foundation, or AIM, which runs an HIV-screening program for the industry. 

The multibillion dollar industry in the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles, dubbed "Porn Valley," employs some 6,000 people in 200 production companies turning out dozens of pornographic films and videos a week. 

It was thrown into crisis last month when five actors tested positive for HIV, the virus that causes AIDS (news - web sites), in the biggest such outbreak in the Southern California adult industry since 1998. The industry decided to impose a 60-day moratorium on filming in a bid to stop the virus spreading further. 

The virus is thought to have been passed by one actor to three women with whom he had on-screen sex without a condom. The fifth person was a transsexual performer unrelated to the other cases. 

AIM said on Wednesday that about half of the 50 porn actors under quarantine because they had worked directly with the HIV positive actor or the actresses he had sex with had now tested negative for HIV three times in 45 days. 

"If you are not shooting any of the people still under the quarantine list, then I see no reason not to start shooting again," Mitchell said. 

She said she expected those still under quarantine to be taken off the list in the next three or four weeks. 

Mitchell said the industry had mostly responded very well to the voluntary shut-down and that there had been no pressure from within the industry to end the moratorium early. 

"No one wants to shoot an HIV infection actually happening," Mitchell said. "Most people realized that the moratorium was a necessary evil." 

The outbreak of the potentially deadly virus prompted calls for mandatory condom use on film sets and inspections of film shoots. But the proposals were resisted by porn film producers who argued that using condoms would take the X out of sex scenes and drive the industry out of California or underground. 



More XXX Stars Confirm for X-Con
Source: X-Con
by: Company Press Release 

(LOS ANGELES, CA) -- With an already impressive list of A-list adult stars and icons such as Nina Hartley, Houston, Carmen Luvana, Britney Andrews, Alexis Amore, Dru Berrymore, Sharon Mitchell, Dick Smothers Jr, Dennis Hof and Taylor St Claire scheduled to attend Sunday's event, the organizers of X-Con announced today that Kylie Ireland, Britney Skye, Roxy Jiselle, Randy Wright, Angel Eyes, Jadea Fire, Misty Mason, Carmen Hayes, Lexi, Taylor St. Claire, Lori Pleasure and Amethyst Stone have also confirmed for X-Con. 

"We are very honored to have So many amazing and empowering women attending this event, commented the organizers of X-Con today, it is nice that we are able to show our support to the female performers of this industry by giving them this event in order to meet their fans. We are enamored to have so many beautiful, strong, woman be part of our event". 

With the addition of these 12 female performers to the already impressive list of adult female stars, X-con promises to be all that it has claimed. 

X-Con is scheduled to take place this Sunday April the 4th at Entertanium studios, an impressive 35,000 square foot adult friendly licensed motion picture studio in Los Angeles this weekend, it is a convention to change the face of convention angled specifically at the female talent of the industry and designed to improve performer/consumer relations. 

For more information on attending X-con please call 213-489-2001 Tickets can be brought in advance via the official X-Con Website at XXX-con.com, tickets are also available for purchase on the door on the day of the event. 



The National Institute for Discovery Science issued a report on Cattle Mutilations back on June 17, 2003. 

Unexplained Cattle Deaths and the Emergence of a Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathy (TSE) Epidemic in North America 
http://216.128.67.116/pdf/cattledeaths_tse_epidemic.pdf 

On why the bodies are left ... 

Why Leave the Body? This question has plagued investigators ever 
since the first well-publicized investigations of mutilations 
began back in the early 1970s. As any reader familiar with the 
animal mutilation topic will agree, a plethora of hypotheses 
have sprung up about the perpetrators and their motives for 
animal mutilations. One of the most quoted hypotheses involves a 
government operation to monitor radiation or biological warfare 
testing. But the question "why leave the body?" has never been 
adequately answered by these hypotheses. 

The government can just as easily test their own herds, the 
counter-argument goes, or obtain carcasses from a slaughterhouse 
if they wish to covertly monitor radiation. Thus, for this and 
many other reasons, the evidence points away from the government 
as perpetrators of animal mutilations. 

Vallee (56) and Smith (57) have suggested intriguing hypotheses 
that leaving the cow carcass on the ground constitutes a 
deliberate message. In common with both these authors, we 
suggest that implicit in the deliberate lack of an attempt to 
conceal the carcass on the part of the perpetrators of animal 
mutilation, is a brutal warning. 

We suggest that attention is being deliberately focused on the 
mutilated animals. Further, we suggest the warning is that the 
human food chain is compromised, probably with a prion- 
associated infectious agent that still remains mostly 
undetected. 


On how long this sort of knowledge has been around ... 

If the hypothesis is correct, animal mutilation operations are 
carried out by a knowledgeable group that is cognizant of the 
biochemistry and infectious potential of prion diseases and 
their fatal spread. How difficult is this knowledge to come by? 
Beginning in 1958, Dr. Carleton Gajdusek began mailing kuru 
brains from the wilds of New Guinea to the central 
neuropathology facility at NIH in Bethesda and Fort Detrick. 
Hence, these fatal neurodegenerative diseases have been known in 
the United States, but not highly publicized, since the late 
1950s or early 1960s. Only recently, due to the intensive prion 
research carried in the past two decades has the extent of prion 
replication become obvious in the eye, tongue, anus/large 
intestine and reproductive organs (see above) of animals. If 
these specific tissues are indeed removed during animal 
mutilation for the purpose of prion monitoring, this implies an 
intensive knowledge of prion physiology, biochemistry and 
infectiousness, involving research results not published until 
relatively recently, on the part of the perpetrators of animal 
mutilations. 

On the implications for the future ... 

As discussed above, some of the harrowing consequences of the 
spread of this TSE infectious agent may lie in a subset of the 
epidemic of Alzheimer's disease that is currently ravaging the 
United States healthcare system. According to CDC estimates (43) 
there are now 4 million Alzheimer's patients in the United 
States, with annual health care costs between $100-500 billion. 
With the aging population, this cost is projected to soon rise 
to $1 trillion when 7-8 million have the disease (43). There is 
also the question of the mysterious early onset Alzheimer's, 
currently afflicting about 200,000 Americans. We have presented 
the evidence that thousands of possible CJD cases may be 
misdiagnosed as Alzheimer's and therefore the extent of this CJD 
epidemic in the United States lies beneath the public's radar. 
We hypothesize that the animal mutilators know and have known of 
the potential damage to humans of this infectious agent in the 
human food chain. 

Thus, we hypothesize that animal mutilations serve as both a 
sampling operation AND a warning. 

A central implication of this paper is that animal mutilations 
serve two purposes: as both a covert monitoring operation for 
the prion infectious agent and as a very graphic public warning, 
a display that monitoring is being done. The body on the 
ground, with glaring evidence of highly skilled surgery, serves 
as a calling card and a warning. From the evidence presented in 
this paper, we believe the warning is: "A major human food 
source (beef, elk, deer) is contaminated." 

There are several predictions that arise out of the animal 
mutilation-prion monitoring hypothesis, since the evidence seems 
to suggest that mutilations will be followed, years or even 
decades later, by a TSE outbreak: 

(a) That a rather large outbreak of CWD/TSE will occur in the 
area around Great Falls Montana in the next several years. 

(b) Similar large outbreaks will occur in Argentina and in 
Northern New Mexico in the next few years (the first six cases 
of CWD were found on and near White Sands missile ground October 
2002-February 2003). 

(c) In the next year or two, there will be an unambiguous link 
drawn between CWD and sporadic CJD in humans in the United 
States. 

(d) Even though the state of California has mandated a ban on 
importing elk and deer from other states, the highly intense 
animal mutilation (>30 animals mutilated in 5 years) cluster on 
and near a ranch in N. California, predicts an outbreak of 
CWD/TSE in northern California in 5-10 years. 

(e) In the coming years, as new methods for distinguishing CJD 
from Alzheimer's comes on line, there will be a dramatic 
increase in the incidence of "sporadic" CJD in the population of 
the United States. 

http://www.nidsci.org/articles/articles2.html 
http://www.nidsci.org/articles/articles2.html




USDA: No Mad Cow Testing Allowed 11-Mar-2004

Scott Kilman reports in the Wall Street Journal that the USDA will not allow individual meat packers to test their own meat, because it may imply that the beef missed during random testing by the U.S. government is not safe. Consumer Susan Brownawell says, "This is ridiculous. If people want to have their beef tested, they should be able to. Isn't this how the free market works?"

"Private companies should be able to test if they want," says Michael Levine, of Organic Valley. "I think the USDA is just petrified of finding more instances of BSE." Creekstone Farms Premium Beef wanted to build its own Mad Cow testing laboratory, but the USDA warned them they couldn't do any testing without government approval. Creekstone usually ships its beef to Japan, which is now rejecting all untested beef. 

There is only one U.S. laboratory that can test for Mad Cow- in Ames, Iowa. Last year, USDA scientists send samples there from only one out of every 1,700 cows. Each test takes several weeks, and there are no tests that work on live cattle. Private laboratories say they can do the same tests in only a few hours. 

Vegetarians need to worry too: MSG in Chinese food gives some people headaches, so food processors removed it from prepared foods in the 1970s. But now it's back, except this time it's being sprayed on food while it's growing in the field, in the form of the fertilizer AuxiGro. 

Food companies will not be required to label the foods sprayed with AuxiGro, and no study has been done to find out if it will cause a reaction in MSG-sensitive people. Animals will also eat crops sprayed with AuxiGro, giving it another opportunity to get into the human food system. 



Hybrid Mosquitoes Spreading West Nile 08-Mar-2004

The U.S. is experiencing more serious, widespread cases of West Nile than Europe because of the hybrid mosquitoes here. Genetic analysis shows that the mosquitoes carrying West Nile in the U.S. have the combined DNA of two different types of European mosquitoes. One of them normally bites birds, while the other bites people. The hybrids bite both. 

Merritt McKinney writes that because these new insects bite both people and birds, they spread West Nile much more quickly. In northern Europe there are two types of mosquitoes-those that live underground and those that live on the surface. Although these two types are not mixing in Europe, genetic analysis of U.S. mosquitoes shows that over 40% of ours are a combination of both. Dr. Dina M. Fonseca says, "We have shown that below-ground populations are derived from northern African specimens that must have migrated north when urban development generated habitats they could survive in [such as subways and sewers]." If the hybrid mosquitoes are the cause of more West Nile outbreaks in the U.S., "then preventing their introduction into northern Europe is paramount." 


A Virus That Prevents AIDS 08-Mar-2004

It's been discovered that HIV patients who become infected with another, mysterious virus, are less likely to develop AIDS. The mystery virus is known only as GB virus C, and men whose blood shows they are infected with it are three times less likely to die of AIDS. 

In New Scientist, Philip Cohen quotes researcher Roger Pomerantz as saying, "Until now, there have been many doubting Thomases who didn't believe this viral antiviral effect even existed. This puts an end to the debate." 

GBV-C was discovered 10 years ago. Since it's related to hepatitis C, scientists at first thought it causes liver disease, but no link to the disease was ever found. Researcher Jack Stapleton says, "At that point, most of the world stopped studying the virus. All that was left were HIV researchers who were interested in its role in co-infection." A few of them began noticing something strange: the newly-discovered virus seemed to protect patients from getting AIDS. 

The survival rate of HIV-positive men who are infected by GBV-C is 75%, compared with only 39% for men who are not infected with it. It's only effective for men who remain infected with it-only 16% of patients who somehow "lost" their GBV-C infections survived. 



Sun May Increase Chance of Certain STD 
	
Tue Mar 30, 4:14 PM ET
	
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By DANIEL Q. HANEY, AP Medical Editor 

ORLANDO, Fla. - The long sunny days of summer may increase the risk of catching a common sexually transmitted infection. And it's not just because people have more sex when the weather is nice. 

Yahoo! Health
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Find answers here. 


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Researchers using data from Holland found that detection of papilloma virus infection during routine cancer screening peaks during August. Their theory: Sunlight suppresses women's immune system defenses. 


Experts have long suspected that sunlight has powerful - and perhaps conflicting - effects on the body's tendency to develop a variety of diseases, including cancer. The best example is the risk of too much sun triggering skin cancer. 


However, many suspect sunshine can have less obvious influences, and can even affect susceptibility to a variety of everyday viruses like papilloma. These viruses are spread through sexual contact, and they are the most common cause of cervical cancer, a disease that kills about 4,000 U.S. women annually. Although the virus can cause genital warts, most infected people have no outward symptoms. 


"The sun is a kind of drug, a drug that influences whether a papilloma infection takes hold or not," said Dr. William Hrushesky, an authority on how disease patterns fluctuate over time. 


Hrushesky, who is based at the WJB Dorn Veterans Administration Medical Center in Columbia, S.C., presented his findings Tuesday at a meeting in Orlando of the American Association for Cancer Research. 


He looked at the results of more than 900,000 Pap tests done in southern Holland between 1983 and 1998. The test does not detect papilloma virus directly. But it reveals abnormal cells that are typically caused by the infection. 


Hrushesky found that the sunnier the year and the sunnier the month, the higher the rate of human papilloma virus. 


August is consistently the sunniest month in southern Holland, and the screening tests picked up twice as much evidence of papilloma virus infection then as in the winter. The virus fell off sharply in September. 


The reason for the August spike? "Sexual intercourse did not appear to explain most of the variance," he said. 


No one can say exactly when people are having the most sex, but one strong hint is when the most babies are conceived. Records show that conception is most likely to occur in Holland in March, although there is only about a 10 percent variation over the year. 


Instead, Hrushesky theorizes that even though women are exposed to papilloma at roughly the same level year round, the extra sunlight weakens their defenses against it in the summer. 


He noted that sun can dampen the body's production of antibodies and the activation of protective T cells, the main branches of the natural defenses against infection. Other research has suggested a connection between sunlight and susceptibility to herpes and adenovirus, among other things. 


Dr. Bruce Armstrong of the University of Sydney in Australia said the impact can occur far from the patches of skin where sunlight hits, and an effect on infection of the cervix seems plausible. 


"The relationship between sunlight and cancer is complex," he said. 


Many studies have noted a link between cancer incidence and how far north people live. In general, these reports show that several kinds of cancer, including colon, prostate and breast, are less frequent in southern areas, suggesting that sunlight may protect against them. 


Armstrong's own study, also presented Tuesday, found that the more sunlight people receive, the less likely they are to get non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. He looked at 1,398 people and found that those who got the most sun had a one-third lower risk than those who got the least. 

	 


___ 

EDITOR'S NOTE: Medical Editor Daniel Q. Haney is a special correspondent for The Associated Press. 

___ 

On the Net: 

http://www.aacr.org/2004AM/2004AM.asp 



Probe: Govt.'s Iowa Lab Not Secure for BSE Work

Tue Mar 30, 3:04 PM ET

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By Randy Fabi 

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. government's main laboratory for testing mad cow disease, located in an Iowa strip mall, is not secure enough to store dangerous pathogens like the brain-wasting disease, U.S. Agriculture Department investigators said on Monday. 

"The building housing the strip mall is close to other commercial businesses and has limited security at the entry and exit points," said a report by the USDA'S Office of Inspector General, which conducts independent audits and investigations of USDA programs. 

The facility in Ames, Iowa -- run by USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency -- discovered the first U.S. case of mad cow disease in December after testing brain tissue samples from an infected cow in Washington state. 

Despite previous recommendations to not store pathogens of any dangerous diseases, like bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE (news - web sites)), the laboratory was found to have kept slides of mad cow disease, the report said. 

"They stated that the BSE slides posed little risk but agreed that the pathogens should not be at the strip mall facility," the report said. Staffers "have since received training to ensure that this incident does not recur," it added. 

The 27-page report said the laboratory has made improvements in security and record-keeping since the agency's first investigation in March 2002. However, investigators repeated their concern that scientists and students were allowed "unlimited access" to the laboratory without the USDA requiring background checks. 

"With unrestricted access, unauthorized personnel having knowledge of a laboratory's inventory could remove a biological agent or piece of equipment and place it in a terrorist's hands long before the theft was discovered," the report said. 

The USDA has verified no dangerous animal diseases were stored any longer at the Ames facility, the department said in response to the report. 

The USDA is working to relocate the federal laboratory. The Bush administration asked Congress for $178 million in fiscal 2005 to complete renovation of the new National Centers for Animal Health. 

http://216.128.67.116/pdf/cattledeaths_tse_epidemic.pdf

Dead Cows I've Known : The Report From Sand Mountain by Ted Oliphant III [alkahest@slip.net] 

Recently the British Secretary of Health admitted that Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE), or "Mad Cow Disease" may be a species jumper. This means that humans exposed to animals with BSE, can also contract it. This announcement set off a panic in Britain, with many countries (Most Notably France, Belgium,Germany and The United States) announcing boycotts of all British beef. There was serious consideration given to destroying all eleven million head of British cattle. 

Current projections for the year 2010, suggest that 200,000 people will die each year from Mad Cow Disease, and it's pre-cursor, Creutzfeldt Jakob Disease. This is in Great Britain alone. 

What is Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease? 

Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease ("CJD") is a rare, fatal brain disorder which causes a rapid, progressive dementia and associated neuromuscular disturbances. The disease is often referred to as a sub acute spongiform encephalopathy because it usually produces microscopic vacuoles in neurons that appear "sponge-like". * Under the microscope, you can see "holes" in brain tissue. 

"Prions", proteins or plaques, are believed to be responsible for other fatal brain diseases in humans, as well as animals. Dr. Gujdusek, a pioneer in the study of Kuru and other TSEs, believes the transport mechanism is actually a spiroplasma, one celled and deadly. In addition to CJD, the suspected human prion diseases include Kuru, Gerstmann-Straussler-Scheinker disease and Fatal Familial Insomnia. Kuru has been found only among the Fore tribe in Papua, New Guinea and has been virtually eliminated since the cessation of the ritual handling and eating of the brains of deceased relatives. The disease is characterized by progressive problems with coordination which are typically followed by dementia. Gerstmann-Straussler-Scheinker disease and fatal familial insomnia are predominantly hereditary disorders with the former usually marked by progressive coordination and movement problems and the latter evidenced by sleeping problems preceding dementia. The suspected prion diseases occurring in animals consist of: Scrapie in sheep and goats; Transmissible Mink Encephalopathy; Chronic Wasting Disease of mule deer and elk; Feline Spongiform Encephalopathy; and, Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy ("BSE"), also known as "mad cow disease".* 

On March 20, 1996, the British Government, in a complete reversal of its previous position, stated that there was a possible link between BSE and CJD. This new acknowledgment arose from the identification of an apparently new strain of CJD which was discovered in 10 people under the age of 42, including some teenagers. Additionally, five of the people were associated with the meat and livestock industry. Scientists advising the British Government decided that the most likely explanation for this unusual outbreak was the consumption of beef from diseased cattle before 1989, when regulations were adopted for the disposal of potentially infectious cattle offal, including brains, and the use of sheep entrails as feed ceased.* 

At the present time, the only proven manner for contracting CJD from an infected person has been through iatrogenic transmission, an unintended consequence of a medical procedure using tainted human matter or surgical instruments. Iatrogenic transmission of CJD has occurred in cases involving corneal transplants, implantation of electrodes in the brain, dura matter grafts, contaminated surgical instruments and the injection of natural human growth hormone derived from cadaveric pituitaries. Thus, one may become infected with CJD from direct contamination with infected neural tissue.* 

There are new, strict guidelines for the handling of suspected BSE, CJD and Kuru infected tissues. Once a brain biopsy is completed, surgical instruments, scalpels and the like, are disposed of because sterilization will not kill the Prions, or proteins. This raises the question of how many times before the new guidelines were instituted, were contaminated surgical instruments used from patient to patient? 

BSE & CJD are Doomsday Diseases, they are very hard to detect, there is no cure or treatment, and both are %100 fatal in ALL cases. 

How did this happen & where did it come from? 

The main suspicion traces the un-natural practice of feeding vegetarian animals "Rendered" food. Rendered foods come from "Rendering plants" like the Avon plant in Geraldine, Alabama. There are hundreds of these plants throughout the United States and the world.


What goes on at a rendering plant? 

Rendering plants act as an animal disposal unit for dead livestock. Instead of burning and disposing of dead animals, they are converted to animal feeds.I visited the Avon plant in 1993 and witnessed this process, where nothing is wasted. Area farmers and ranchers are invited to drop off any dead farm animal. The animals are crushed up in large mulchers and poured into enormous high pressure vats where they are cooked into multi-animal stew. The stew is further processed until it is packaged and sold to area farmers as livestock feed. I've witnessed pigs, goats, cows and horses brought to rendering plants. The animals were in various conditions. Some had been dead for over 24 hours, yet were still rendered into livestock feed. Shockingly, many cows that been found "mutilated", ( missing various glands, tissue and organs) were brought to the rendering factory and processed into food for their still living relatives. I was shocked, but unlike Great Britain which has had protections against such practices since 1989, there are no such guidelines here in the United States. 

What is the prospect for Mad Cow Disease to appear in the United States? 

That is THE question several of us are asking, what does our government know and what aren't they telling us? The first case of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease appeared in the 1890's, was finally identified in 1920 and first considered contagious during the identification and study of Kuru in the 1950's though it was, at that time, thought to be fully contained. However the identification of contaminated surgical instruments as a transport mechanism raises a bigger question...how many surgeries used contaminated scalpels? 

The incubation period for BSE, CJD and other associated Spongiform Associated Fragments (SAF) ranges from six months to forty years. That means that if you ingested contaminated meat prior to becoming a vegetarian, you can still get sick many years down the road. 

This isn't the first time animal parts introduced into the food chain, caused illness and death. Thyrotoxicosis (New England Journal of Medicine, Hedburg CW, Fishbein DB et all 316: 993-8, 1987) occurred when bovine thyroid glands were combined with hamburger meat and distributed throughout many communities. This caused over 100,000 people to get sick. Finally the Center for Disease Control (CDC) investigated and concluded that large doses of bovine thyroid hormone in hamburger meat, was the culprit. Here's what happened. For years the US Government bought every bovine thyroid gland it could get it's hands on for research. As a result, every meat packing plant in America was removing the thyroids and selling them to Uncle Sam for top dollar. Then all of the sudden, our government stopped buying them. Meat packing plants and butchers starting grinding up the glands and mixing them with our hamburger. That practice has, for the most part, been stopped thanks to the CDC. 

The U.S. Army, The National Institute of Health (NIH) & Rocky Mountain Labs. 

Quietly and secretly, The United States Army and the Center For Disease Control have worked together, off & on, for years. A perfect example of this clandestine cooperation was the outbreak and containment of Ebola Reston. You can learn more about this in an excellent book "The Hot Zone". The Army & The CDC entered the Reston monkey houses, took care of business and were gone before anybody knew what happened. They showed up in civilian clothes, and un-marked vans. All of this was done right under the noses of television camera crews who were looking around, but never saw them because the Army & CDC hid their vehicles behind buildings! Currently another organization, The National Institute of Health (NIH) has been tasked with tracking and studying something even more frightening: Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathies and other Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathies (TSEs). Much of the research has been conducted at Rocky Mountain Labs. Not far away, Dr. John Altschuler, a veterinary pathologist/hematologist has also been studying this problem, he's been doing so quietly since 1967. All the tests and studies he's done as "favors" for cattle mutilation guru Linda Moulton Howe, haven't just been for her. Dr. John has a friend in the government he's been comparing notes with for some time. Originally it was thought that a foreign power might be trying to contaminate the American food supply. Instead they discovered a new biological evolution, TSEs. 

The funding for this research is hidden in the NIH's black budget for the study of AIDS. Neither AIDS or BSE are viruses, rather they are the consequences of immune systems that have been thwarted. BSE and AIDS are both plaques. The research has been kept quiet to prevent an outbreak of panic. But the cats out of the bag, all of us are in the same boat. Every American who's ever eaten meet has been exposed to our new, common threat: Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathies. 

Over the last ten years, law enforcement in dozens of States have been trying to track and identify unmarked helicopters sighted where area livestock have been discovered dead under suspicious circumstances. The helicopters are seen before and after these cows are found in pastures, missing certain organs. The same things are always taken. Bovine jaws are stripped to the bone, reproductive organs removed, digestive tracks and rectums "cored" out. There is little to no blood at the scene. Tissue samples taken by police investigators and analyzed at veterinary labs, all show signs of exposure to heat, three hundred degrees or more. The tissue is cooked and the incisions are cauterized by the heat. This prevents blood and other fluids from leeching onto the ground. Everything taken has to do with input, output and reproduction. In recent mutilation cases, Alabama 1993 & 1994, California 1996 and Florida 1997; pharmaceuticals have been found in bovine blood. They are: Barbiturates, Anti-coagulants, Synthetic Amphetamines, Aluminum-Titanium-Oxygen-Silicon flakes, and Antimony (Antimony: A brittle lustrous white metallic element occurring in nature, free or combined, used chiefly in alloys and in compounds in medicine. Webster's). The drugs found are NOT veterinary drugs, they are pharmaceuticals associated with humans. Among those law enforcement agents who have thoroughly investigated these bovine excision sites, there is a consensus that some kind of medical testing going on. The additional presence of helicopters on scene, before and after cattle are found dead missing specific organs, leads both victimized farmers and investigating officers to conclude that there is a connection. But why use human drugs on cows? Use your imagination.


Every organ taken from affected livestock has to do with input, output and reproduction. Where entire jaws have been excised in large, oval excisions, the bone is exposed and is perfectly clean. The wounds have been cauterized and there is no presence of blood. The jaw is an important area, paricularly because enzymes are produced in saliva glands near there. Enzymes that can kill viruses and bacteria. The digestive track also acts as a filter, that absorbs, collects and stores traces of any chemical or toxin introduced. The rectum is a similar filter as are ears. They store traces of toxins and chemicals like a library. Because many diseases (like CJD & BSE ) can be inherited, the reproductive system may be a good place to find look for clues on how it passed to the next generation. 

In 1993, I got a call from a man who told me that if I went to a certain place on a certain evening, I would see several helicopters land and refuel. He was right. Well after dark, two Chinook helicopters (The large twin rotor type) landed in the field behind some trees and opened their doors revealing large black plastic fuel bladders. Minutes later several smaller scout helicopters landed nearby, shut down and crews from the Chinooks walked over with large hoses and refueled each of a half dozen helicopters. The whole operation took less than 30 minutes and the helicopters took off and headed across the border where we tracked them to their home base, Fort Campbell, Kentucky. Now we knew who they were but we couldn't figure out why they refueled on Sand Mountain. The next morning a reporter, Steven Smith from the Rainsville Weekly Post, called the Public Affairs Officer, William Gibbons of the 101st Airborne and asked if they might've been in our area the previous evening. "We have no aircraft in your area, it wasn't us" said the captain. It certainly was. So we knew then that some kind of secret operation was being conducted, but we didn't know what it was. We still don't, but when you look at each piece of evidence and try to use them as puzzle pieces, these so called "cattle mutilations" might be associated with government studies of epidemiology. With BSE & CJD being such devastating "new" diseases, is it possible than many alleged cases of "cattle mutilations" are actually evidence of our tax dollars at work? 

The Evidence Suppression Team from Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama; & The F.A.A. Investigation of un-marked helicopters over Sand Mountain. 

The 101st Airborne Division is not suspected of being directly involved in the cattle mutilations that occurred between Oct. 1992 through May of 1993. But is seems possible they may have refueled the un-marked helicopters that we eventually traced to Maxwell Air Force Base. The 101st's inability to tell the truth about where they had been, seems to be a constant in Federal Government employee behavior: You don't tell the truth unless somebody holds a gun to your head. 

When un-marked helicopters were witnessed by local farmers and law enforcement officers, Albertville Police's Chief of Detectives Tommy Cole called in the Federal Aviation Administration to investigate. Detective Cole had lost a cow to the phantom surgeons and his wife had seen an un-marked helicopter over their pasture January 8th, 1993; the day before they discovered one of their Black Angus steers mutilated. An FAA investigator came to Albertville and Cole took him for a ride in his police car. The FAA investigator was skeptical until an un-marked helicopter flew near them. The FAA investigator couldn't believe his own eyes and pulled out a hand held radio and hailed the helicopter. The helicopter pilot didn't respond and ignored demands that he identify himself. This infuriated the FAA investigator who had now reversed his skepticism. He was able to trace the helicopter to Maxwell Air Force Base in Southern Alabama. When he launched an inquiry at the base, he was immediately told to drop it and never talk about again. A week later Chief Detective Cole received a call after midnight, it was the FAA investigator. It seems that while out in a boat on nearby Lake Guntersville, he and his family had witnessed a large triangle shaped craft flying maneuvers above them. I wonder if he ever reported that to his superiors? 

I don't pretend to know the solution to either the bovine excision cases nor the appearance of the mystery helicopters. I don't know that America faces a threat from BSE, but I do feel that these questions deserve our attention. President Ronald Reagan once hypothesized: "What if one day we all found that we faced a common threat from outer space, wouldn't we all put aside our differences and work together?". President Reagan wasn't so far off, today we DO face a common threat, soon we'll realize that we all have something in common: exposure to Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathies. 

If you have any information, pertinent speculation or a rebuttal, please contact me. 

Ted Oliphant III, email: alkahest@slip.net, (510) 486 0611 

*Courtesy of the Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease Research Foundation.


Safe' Ultraviolet Rays May Cause Cancer

Fri Mar 26, 6:03 PM ET

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NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Ultraviolet-B (UVB) rays are the component of sunlight that cause sunburn, while ultraviolet-A (UVA) rays, which produce a tan, are thought to be relatively safe. Now, however, Australian and US researchers report that UVA induces a greater number of mutations in the deep layer of skin, where skin cancers arise, than does UVB light. 

Far more UVA light than UVB light penetrates to the basal layers of skin, the scientists point out in an article in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (news - web sites). However, UVA appears to cause less direct damage to DNA than UVB and has been "considered far less carcinogenic." 

Dr. Nita S. Agar from University of Sydney and colleagues used the distinctive "fingerprints" of UVA and UVB damage to DNA to examine which types of rays were causing mutations in deep and shallow skin layers in skin cancers and in pre-malignant solar keratoses. 

All UVB mutations in solar keratoses and 82 percent of UVB mutations in squamous cell carcinomas were located in the upper skin layers, the authors report, whereas most UVA mutations (57 percent and 86 percent, respectively) were found in the basal layers. 

Further analysis also showed unrepaired DNA damage induced by recent UVB exposure in the upper layers. In the basal layers, unrepaired damage induced by UVA exposure was predominant. 

"The identification of UVA mutations in both (skin cancers) and premalignant solar keratoses in almost identical proportions implicates an early role for this band of radiation in tumor progression," the investigators comment. 

"Given the traditional emphasis on UVB," they conclude that protection "also from UVA irradiation has profound implications on public health worldwide." 

SOURCE: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, online early edition, March 22, 2004. 






Government Expands Mad Cow Testing 
	
2 hours, 40 minutes ago
	
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By IRA DREYFUSS, Associated Press Writer 

WASHINGTON - The Agriculture Department is planning a 10-fold increase in the number of cattle tested for mad cow disease in response to discovery of the nation's first case of the disease last December. 


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The department announced plans Monday to test more than 221,000 animals over a 12- to 18-month period beginning in June. 


Included would be 201,000 animals considered to be at high risk of bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE (news - web sites), because they show symptoms of nervous system disorders such as twitching. 


Random tests also will be conducted on about 20,000 older animals sent to slaughter even though they appear healthy. Those tests are aimed at sampling cattle old enough to have eaten feed produced before 1997, when the Food and Drug Administration (news - web sites) banned the use of cattle tissue in feed for other cattle. 


The government last year conducted mad cow tests on tissues from 20,543 animals, virtually all of them cattle that could not stand or walk and had to be dragged to slaughter. After the case in December, the department initially doubled the number of animals to be tested this year to 40,000. 


Agriculture Department officials emphasized that the expanded testing regime announced Monday is a one-time deal only. They said they hope to begin it in June and meet the total target over the next 12 to 18 months. 


Dr. Ron DeHaven, the Agriculture Department's top veterinarian, said the need for testing in the range of 200,000 animals a year will be re-evaluated once the initial round is completed. 


Cattle eating the tissue of a diseased cow is considered the primary way the misshapen protein blamed for BSE is transmitted. For humans, eating meat that contains BSE can cause a similarly rare but fatal illness in people, variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (news - web sites). 


Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman estimated that the new testing will cost $70 million. She said the expanded testing reflects the recommendations of an international scientific review panel she appointed a week after mad cow disease was confirmed in a Washington state Holstein slaughtered on Dec. 9. 


"We are committed to ensuring that a robust U.S. surveillance program continues in this country," Veneman said. 


Nearly 50 countries imposed bans on American beef after the first U.S. case was confirmed. Poland has lifted its ban and Mexico has relaxed its prohibitions, but major importers like Japan and South Korea (news - web sites) have said they will not allow American beef back in until all 35 million cattle slaughtered in the United States each year are tested. 


The new U.S. testing plan still does not meet Japanese requirements, said Tadashi Sato, agricultural attache at the Japanese Embassy in Washington. 


"We want to see the U.S. government introduce the same system for beef safety, or at least an equivalent system, that we have in Japan. We test all slaughter cattle, regardless of age - not some," he said. 


Domestic critics also weren't satisfied. Felicia Nestor, food safety director for the Government Accountability Project, a watchdog group, said the new testing doesn't guarantee that any animals with BSE won't enter the food supply. 


The National Cattlemen's Beef Association (news - web sites) supported the limited-duration testing program. But it said the new rapid tests that return results within hours instead of weeks have the potential to label animals as BSE-infected when they aren't. The Agriculture Department has said any positive results from the rapid tests will be verified by more exact tests. 


Before BSE, exports accounted for about 10 percent of the nation's more than 26 billion pounds of beef produced each year. 


The department expects to announce soon a new system of rapid tests that will make the increased surveillance possible. The rapid tests could be done at laboratories around the nation, as well as the department's National Veterinary Services Laboratory in Ames, Iowa, currently the only facility that can do testing. 

	 


The testing could find one case of BSE in 10 million animals, he said. It would establish whether the United States has more cases of mad cow. 

DeHaven has said it's not necessary to test every animal because the department's targeted surveillance program system would pick up one case of BSE in 10 million animals. 



Insider's letter to editor exposes bull in mad cow coverage

by Dave Louthan, Columbia Basin Herald [Moses Lake, WA] 

Jan. 22, 2004

My name is Dave and I work at Vern's Moses Lake Meats. I did until the day the mad cow test results on the Sunny Dene cow came back positive for BSE. That was Wednesday, Dec. 24. On Friday, Dec. 26, the KXLY news crew was at the end of Vern's driveway, locked out by a cable gate. The USDA had told the world that the mad cow had been slaughtered here, but it was not in the food chain. A blatant lie. It was one of many. Update: Jan. 26, 2004

Slaughterhouse "splitting saw" targets cattle's spine

"Contamination is smeared across every cut" 





I walked out with the news crew at lunch time because I can't stand a government cover-up. They asked me "was the cow in the food chain?" I told them of course it was, it's meat. Where else would it be? They asked me if the cow was a downer. I told them no, it was just an old cow.

The USDA had us taking brain stem samples from downers and back door cripples only. Since we only had a few walkers on this trailer full of downers, we just killed her along with them. We took a brain sample from her head because the USDA gives up $10 per sample.

If we would have unloaded her in the pens, we would have never caught the BSE. How many other walkers have BSE? We will never know. The USDA only tested the downers and cripples and only at our plant. We had only been taking brain samples for about a month when we found this one.

When the USDA said no more downers would be slaughtered, they essentially said no more BSE testing would be done. Vern's and every other slaughterhouse kept right on killing and selling Holstein meat from the same area as the mad cow with no BSE testing whatsoever. This is true and easily verifiable.

And just so the folks in Moses Lake don't feel left out, the beef head, tongue, liver, kidneys and tail were sold right here in the Columbia Basin. It's way past time for everybody to stop thinking with their bank accounts and start trying to find a way to stop the spread of BSE.

The minute the USDA found the contaminated cow, they stopped the brain stem collection and testing. Why? Ka-ching! It's the money. Billions.

If you want to be sure you and your family are eating safe meat, demand testing on every beef slaughter. It's quick and easy. Don't eat another piece of meat until you see a sticker that says tested and cleared for BSE on the package. BSE is 100 percent fatal -- if you or your kidstudy: Parents Don't See Obesity in Their Children

Wed Mar 17, 6:45 AM ET

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By Patricia Reaney 

LONDON (Reuters) - Parents are so accustomed to seeing overweight youngsters that many fail to realize when their own children are obese, British researchers said on Wednesday. 

It is a worrying trend according to scientists at the Peninsula Medical School in Plymouth, England because being overweight and obese increases the risk of suffering from a variety of illnesses later in life. 

Obese children are also more likely to develop Type 2 diabetes, a disease previously seen only in adults. 

"A third of the mothers and 57 percent of dads actually saw their obese child as normal," said Alison Jeffery, a member of the research team at the medical school. 

"Quite a few parents are not recognizing it as a problem. They are not recognizing the health risks either," she added in an interview. 

But Jeffery said it isn't a case of denial. 

"We are all used to seeing people who are bigger than they used to be 20 years ago and we just see people who are overweight as normal." 

Jeffery, who presented her findings to the Diabetes UK medical conference in Birmingham, England, questioned 300 seven-year old children and their parents about their perceptions of body size. 

One third of mothers and half of fathers who were either overweight or obese rated themselves as "about right." 

When the child was a normal weight, according to an internationally recognized measurement of obesity in children, most of their parents, regardless of their own size, knew there was no problem. 

When the child was overweight but not obese, only a quarter of the parents knew it. But when the youngsters were obese, 40 percent of parents were not concerned about their child's weight. 

Health experts have described the increased rates of obesity in children as a serious public health problem because of its link with diabetes as well as an increased risk of heart disease, stroke and other illnesses later in life. 

The prevalence of type 2 diabetes in obese children in Poland is nearly four percent. In Hungary it is two percent and 1.6 percent in Germany, according to recent research. 

"Diabetes is hugely on the increase and we know that children from as young as the age of seven have metabolic changes that are precursors to diabetes if they are very overweight," said Jeffery. 

"They may not be diabetic until they are older but you can see it beginning." 


get it, you die a very painful death. It's a slow, wasting disease. It's terrible.

Right now, a lot of people are telling you how safe their beef is, but they don't know if it is or is not without testing. That's their checkbook talking. Tat rendering plant in Canada wasn't feeding 81 cows, it was feeding thousands of cows.

Every second that goes by, more untested beef goes on the dinner plate. If you eat mad cow, you are going to get sick and you are going to die. Stand up and demand safe meat.

Dave Louthan Moses Lake, WA


Government Bans Cattle Blood in Feed 
	
59 minutes ago
	
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By LAURAN NEERGAARD, AP Medical Writer 

WASHINGTON - The government is outlawing the use of cattle blood in livestock feed and cow brains and other parts in dietary supplements, part of broader restrictions in wake of the nation's first known case of mad cow disease. 


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Slideshow: Mad Cow Disease

	 

The Food and Drug Administration (news - web sites) announced steps late Monday to close loopholes in its livestock feed ban - a key protection against spread of the brain-wasting disease in cattle - and to make sure that people don't consume risky animal parts in processed foods and supplements. 


"Firewalls have been in place for many years," said FDA Commissioner Mark McClellan. "The steps we're taking today are intended to provide even greater security." 


The government maintains the food supply is safe despite last month's discovery of an infected cow imported from Canada, because the animal's brain, spinal cord and certain other tissues - parts that carry the disease - were removed before the meat was processed. 


Still, the Agriculture Department soon took steps to increase meat safety, including a meatpacking ban on so-called downer cattle like the infected Holstein and restrictions on mechanical slaughter techniques that could contaminate beef with nervous system tissue. 


On Monday, the FDA made its own rules for processed food conform with those new restrictions to provide extra assurance that products like canned soups or frozen pizza won't be made with downer cattle or mechanically separated beef. 


Also, cosmetics and dietary supplements can't be made with potentially infectious cow parts, FDA said. In recent years, some supplements have claimed to harbor cow brains. 


But the nation's main defense against mad cow disease is a 1997 ban on giving cattle feed made from the protein or bone meal of sheep or certain other mammals - because that feed is considered the way the deadly disease originally spread in Britain and other countries. 


Critics have long worried about some big loopholes: Cows could be fed blood from slaughtered cattle, usually as a milk replacement for calves. That exemption was allowed even though for years Americans possibly exposed to mad cow-tainted beef in other countries haven't been allowed to donate blood, for fear the disease could spread that way. Last month, the British government announced that a man who died from the human form of mad cow disease may have been infected through a transfusion. 

Also, cow parts are allowed in pig and poultry feed - and until now, chicken waste could be swept up and added to cattle feed, meaning cows could indirectly be exposed. 


Among FDA's actions are new rules for cattle feed that: 


_Prohibit mammalian blood and blood products from being fed to cattle or other ruminant animals. 


_Ban chicken waste from livestock feed. 


_Ban the use of uneaten meat and other scraps from large restaurants from being recycled into cattle feed. 


_Require factories that make both livestock feed and feed for other animals that uses bovine ingredients to have separate production lines to guard against accidental contamination. 


To ensure the rules are followed, FDA this year will increase inspections of feed mills and renderers, conducting 2,800 inspections and contracting with states for an additional 3,800. 


The agency's steps are an improvement but don't go far enough, said Caroline Smith DeWaal of the consumer advocacy group Center for Science in the Public Interest. The main problem: Poultry and pigs can still eat feed made from cow remains, so what's to prevent a farmer from accidentally mixing up the feed? 

	 


"They have more protections, but when you get down to the farm level, mistakes can still happen," she said. 

FDA's announcement came as Agriculture Department's chief veterinarian said he expects many of the infected Holstein's herdmates will never be found. 

The department has been searching for 80 animals that were raised in Alberta, Canada, and shipped to the United States in 2001 with the Holstein that wound up in Mabton. 

Veterinarian Ron DeHaven said officials now are focusing on what happened to 25 of the Canadian-born animals raised within a two-year window of the Holstein's birth, because they would be most likely to have eaten the same, possibly contaminated feed. Officials have located 14 of them, he said. 



Seven Mad Cow Deaths Linked to Racetrack 15-Jan-2004

Seven people died of the human form of Mad Cow Disease in New Jersey, with their only contact being that they all ate in the same racetrack restaurant, making one wonder what was being served there. 

Faye Flam writes in the Philadelphia Inquirer that the seven victims of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease had all eaten at the Garden State Race Track in Cherry Hill, New Jersey. Janet Skarbek brought the cases to the attention of the Center for Disease Control because her friend Carrie Mahan was one of them. 

Skarbek started to look for other cases of CJD in the obituaries and found an 83-year-old man who had also spent time at the racetrack where Mahan worked between 1989 and 1995. Then she found four more cases among people who ate at the racetrack restaurant, as well as another woman who had worked at the track, which closed in 2001. 

It's been discovered that prion diseases can be passed from animal to animal, with some of them being unaffected carriers of the disease. This means that there may also be humans who are carriers of CJD, without being affected by it. Their blood could contaminate blood transfusions and medical equipment, without anyone realizing it. Regular sterilization does not removed prions from surgical instruments. 

Neurologist Patrick Bosque says, "It raises an additional level of concern, that these prions can persist in animals, and increase, even though (the animals) don't appear sick. For one thing, it shows you that screening for just obviously sick animals may not be sufficient." 

Michael Hansen, of the Consumers Union, says although feeding cattle remains directly to cows has been banned, cattle brains and spinal columns, where prions can lurk, are still turned into feed for chickens and pigs, whose remains are then put into cattle feed. He says, "Those animals could become silent carriers and infect cattle." 

The CDC's Tom Skinner says all seven New Jersey patients had sporadic CJD, a brain disease that was once not believed to be linked to infected beef. But now scientists say that sporadic CJD may be mistaken for Mad Cow-or may even be the same disease. 

Todd Harman reports for the Scripps Howard News Service that it's long been believed that only one of the two versions of human CJD can be linked to eating meat. The other version, known as sporadic or classical CJD, has long been thought to occur randomly in about one in every million people, with no link to infected meat. But new studies show that classical CJD may also be caused by eating meat, and that many of these cases, which occur in older people, may have been misdiagnosed as Alzheimer's Disease. 

Scientists in the U.K. injected tissue from a cow with Mad Cow Disease into mice whose brains were genetically engineered with human genes. One set of mice got sick with the human form of Mad Cow, but another set of mice developed what looked like the sporadic form of CJD, the one that scientists believed has no relationship to Mad Cow Disease or meat-eating. 

The main thing separating the type of diagnosis you're given may be your age. People who die of classical (or sporadic) CJD are all older people. Researchers first noticed Mad Cow Disease when young people started dying of CJD. But they may actually be the same disease and may both be caused by eating tainted meat. Researcher (and vegan) Dr. Michael Greger says, "Given the new research showing that infected beef may be responsible for some (classical) CJD, thousands of Americans may already be dying because of Mad Cow Disease every year." 



Asia Bird Flu Spreads; 7-Year-Old Dies in Thailand

2 hours, 7 minutes ago

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By Clarence Fernandez 

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - A deadly strain of bird flu killed a seven-year-old boy in Thailand Tuesday and spread to Indonesia as officials across the region scrambled to limit damage to Asia's huge tourism sector. 

China, which has the world's largest population of poultry, said the potentially lethal H5N1 strain had been detected in poultry in teeming Guangdong province, which borders Hong Kong. 

Three other regions on the mainland have also reported the strain, the only form of the avian influenza virus known to have killed humans. The death of 7-year-old Virat Phraphong from the major chicken farming province of Suphanburi in Thailand takes the death toll from the disease to 13. 

He had pneumonia for a month before he was transferred to and put on a respirator at the Children's Hospital in Bangkok last month, his doctor said. 

Despite cases of bird flu in 10 countries across Asia, only some have reported the H5N1 strain and the virus has leaped to humans only in Thailand and Vietnam. Four people have died in Thailand and nine in Vietnam. 

Indonesia, the world's fourth most populous nation, said on Tuesday it had detected the H5N1 strain in poultry. 

"The identification process indicates the virus H5N1 in poultry ... but so far there is no case among humans," Tri Satya Putri Naipospos, director of animal health at the Agriculture Ministry, told a news conference. 

Indonesia's poultry industry, estimated to be worth about 60 trillion rupiah ($7.2 billion) annually, has seen costs from the outbreak run to about 7.7 trillion rupiah. 

To stave off the threat to Asian tourism, officials meeting in Vientiane, the capital of Laos, weighed strategies such as joint marketing campaigns, fewer curbs on travel and discounts on air travel and hotel stays. 

The bird flu outbreak comes a year after Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS (news - web sites)) devastated Asian economies. The Asian Development Bank says that outbreak cost the region $60 billion. 

TOURISTS CANCEL TRIPS 

"I'm expecting that maybe bird flu will cause the number of tourists coming to Asia to decline a bit," said Shin Hyun Taek, South Korean vice minister for tourism. SARS clipped 10 percent off Korean tourist arrivals last year, from 5.35 million. 

Pham Tu, vice minister for tourism in Vietnam, which has had the most deaths from bird flu, said he regretted 1,000 Japanese tourists had canceled their trips but said visitor arrivals in January had jumped 17 percent from last year. 

"We would like to send a message to Japanese tourists that there's no evidence of human-to-human transmission in Vietnam," Pham said. "I still eat chicken, but to react to the concerns of tourists we've taken it off their menus." 

In Vietnam, a spokesman for the World Health Organization (news - web sites) said it was safe to eat chicken and eggs that had been thoroughly cooked. A hospital said Monday an 18-year-old man who died of bird flu had eaten chicken killed by the H5N1 virus. 

Spokesman Robert Dietz said the WHO had yet to confirm the man was killed by bird flu, which has claimed the lives of eight others in Vietnam. 

Thailand, the world's fourth biggest exporter of chicken, has had four confirmed deaths from bird flu. 

In addition, 11 others have died of suspected bird flu, while another seven are suspected to have the disease. 

Laboratory tests have yet to confirm these deaths are attributable to bird flu. Thailand has killed 30 million poultry and hopes it has turned the corner. Chief government spokesman Jakrapob Penkair said the number of "red zones" -- the 3-mile area around a confirmed outbreak in which all poultry must be slaughtered -- had shrunk by half to 18 in seven provinces from 35 in 16 provinces on Monday. 

Beijing, sensitive after it was hit by SARS, another virus feared to have jumped from animals to humans, set up 200 bird flu monitoring stations and banned imports of live chickens from other provinces, the Beijing Star News said. 

No cases among humans have been reported. 

"We will win the battle with the precious experience we gained in combating the SARS crisis last year," official news agency Xinhua quoted Vice Premier Hui Liangyu, head of the National Bird Flu Prevention Headquarters, as saying. 

Eleven of China's 31 provinces have confirmed or suspected outbreaks of avian influenza. At one site, authorities put under medical observation 3,200 farmers in the city of Ezhou in Hubei province, for three weeks. 




Rats on Menu as Bird Flu Leaves Fowl Aftertaste


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Feb 18, 9:27 am ET 

PHNOM PENH (Reuters) - Bird flu may have decimated poultry businesses across Asia, but rat dealers have never had it so good.

"I've got a constant stream of customers," Van Vath, a rat butcher in the western Cambodian town of Battambang, told Wednesday's edition of Cambodge Soir.

With customers shying away from chicken for fear of catching the deadly flu virus that has killed millions of birds and at least 20 people, she has been selling more than 400 pounds of rodent meat every morning -- twice her normal turnover.

In far-flung corners of the jungle-clad and impoverished Southeast Asian nation, rat -- fried, grilled or roasted with garlic and vegetables -- is a highly prized delicacy.

It is not the only ingredient to be found scuttling on the rural Cambodian menu.

Spiders, water beetles, crickets, snakes, frogs and ants are all choice treats, with local tradition saying they were first eaten by starving peasants during the Khmer Rouge genocide in the 1970s. 




Supply 

Sun Feb 1, 1:12 PM ET

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By DANIEL Q. HANEY, AP Medical Editor 

Prescription flu drugs could provide lifesaving early protection against bird flu if the virus disastrously mutates into a worldwide pandemic, but experts warn that supplies will quickly run out unless governments stockpile the medicines. 

Early talks are going on between the U.S. government and one maker about providing a large quantity for use in a pandemic, but at best the medicine is still months away. If enough was available, the drugs could help buy time until a vaccine is developed to stop the flu's spread. 

Experts say the flu drugs could shorten illness and prevent lethal complications for flu victims - as well as keep healthy people from catching it, especially health care workers. 

Doctors say only one brand, Tamiflu, is practical for large-scale stockpiling, but so far no government has bought the big amounts needed for a pandemic. For now, worldwide supplies are skimpy, because the drugs are not widely used to treat ordinary flu. 

"This needs to be in the national stockpile, just as much as Cipro and smallpox vaccine," says Dr. Arnold Monto, a flu expert at the University of Michigan. A bird flu pandemic "could have as much of an impact as a manmade terrorist attack." 

The U.S. government has already ordered an extra supply of Tamiflu to help deal with the current flu season, although the exact amount is classified. Much more would be needed for a pandemic. 

Roche's Tamiflu, a pill introduced in 1999, is one of two drugs called neuraminidase inhibitors that appear to be effective against all kinds of flu, including the bird flu circulating in Asia. The other, GlaxoSmithKline's Relenza, requires an inhaler and is rarely used. It is not considered suitable for stockpiling. 

Roche makes only as much as is needed for a typical flu season and does not stockpile the drug for an emergency. "If there was a large outbreak like a pandemic, it would take at least several months to produce additional product on top of what's already available," says Terence Hurley, a Roche spokesman. 

So far, he said, the company has received no orders for stockpiling large amounts. However, the company is in "preliminary discussions" with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (news - web sites). The World Health Organization (news - web sites) is also working on stockpiling plans with several European countries. 

Tamiflu and Relenza are much more expensive than an older and more widely available category of flu drugs called M2 inhibitors. These include the generic medicines rimantadine and amantadine. 

When the current variety of bird flu first spread from chickens to people in Hong Kong in 1997, it could be treated with the M2 drugs. But it has since mutated and become resistant to those medicines, a discovery that Dr. Frederick Hayden of the University of Virginia called "very disquieting." 

"That means that a whole class of drugs really would not be useful for treatment or protection," Hayden said. 

Just how the flu drugs might be used has been widely discussed and debated among flu experts, who agree they could be especially critical in the early months of an outbreak, assuming enough was available. 

"I think it would definitely have a major role in the first wave of any new pandemic strain and would perhaps provide time for the development of a vaccine," says Dr. Paul Glezen of Baylor College of Medicine in Houston. 

A flu vaccine takes at least six months to develop and manufacture in the best of circumstances. A bird flu shot is likely to be even more difficult, because it requires genetic engineering techniques that have never been used in human vaccines. 

Meanwhile, a bird flu virus could spread around the world in weeks and would be very difficult to contain by isolating victims - as was done with SARS (news - web sites) - since flu is more contagious. 

For now, bird flu is widespread among poultry in many Asian countries. A handful of cases have been documented in people, but there is no sign of person-to-person spread. The fear is that someone already infected with the human flu will also catch bird flu. The two viruses could swap genes inside the victim's body, producing a very contagious new virus for which people have little or no immunity. 

Experts say supply is the single biggest concern about flu drugs. "If there really was an explosive worldwide epidemic, we would have shortages of the drugs," says Dr. John Treanor of the University of Rochester. 

If taken by healthy people, Tamiflu could probably significantly reduce the chance of catching the flu. People would need to take it daily for at least six weeks, until the wave of disease passed, and not even a huge stockpile would allow for that. 

However, some experts say it might make sense to give the drug to protect essential personnel, such as hospital workers, ambulance crews, firefighters and police. 

The drug's main benefit, though, would be in treating the sick. Some propose giving it to everyone who gets sick in the first days of an outbreak. That would make them less likely to infect others, and might slow the epidemic. 

Others recommend limiting the drugs to those most likely to die from the flu, such as the elderly. "That assumes that we are not all at the same risk," says Monto. 

If taken soon after symptoms start, Tamiflu can shorten a bout of ordinary flu by several days, and people often start feeling better within hours. How well it would work against a mutant bird flu is unknown. 

No one knows how many would get sick in a bird flu pandemic, or even whether a new virus would truly spread as easily in humans as it does in birds. However, experts generally estimate that 30 percent to 40 percent of the population gets sick in a flu pandemic. 

In the worst pandemic on record, the 1918-19 Spanish flu, an estimated 40 million to 50 million died. The world population is almost four times larger now. 

___ 

EDITOR'S NOTE: Medical Editor Daniel Q. Haney is a special correspondent for The Associated Press. 




Bird Flu May Have Passed Between Humans 

2 hours, 28 minutes ago

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By TINI TRAN, Associated Press Writer 

HANOI, Vietnam - Two Vietnamese sisters who died of bird flu may have caught the disease from their brother, the World Health Organization (news - web sites) said Sunday. If confirmed, it would be the first known case of human-to-human transmission of the virus during the current outbreak sweeping Asia. 

The source of the two sisters' infection has not yet been conclusively identified, said Bob Dietz, a WHO spokesman in Hanoi. 

"However, WHO considers that limited human-to-human transmission from the brother to his sisters is one possible explanation," he said. 

Laboratory tests in Hong Kong verified that the sisters, ages 30 and 23, had been infected by the H5N1 bird flu virus, he said. 

The sisters were among eight Vietnamese whose deaths were confirmed to be from the bird flu that has infected poultry, mostly chickens, in at least 10 countries. Thailand has confirmed two human deaths from the disease. 

China closed poultry markets and processing factories in bird flu-affected areas, shortly after WHO warned that Beijing's chances to contain the disease may be dwindling. 

WHO on Saturday called on China to share more information about the disease, step up monitoring for possible human cases and take precautions so that workers engaged in the mass slaughter of birds are not accidentally infected. 

The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (news - web sites) appealed for international aid for farmers across Asia, saying the farmers may otherwise resist slaughtering their flocks, a crucial measure in stamping out the disease and preventing a human outbreak. 

"We are ... concerned that mass culling is not taking place at a speed we consider absolutely necessary to contain the virus," said Hans Wagner, an FAO animal production and health officer. 

Most cases have been linked to contact with sick birds, and until now no evidence of human-to-human transmission has been found. 

Limited human-to-human transmission of the virus is not considered a serious danger. What experts fear is that the virus might mutate into a form that passes easily between people. 

There is no evidence that a new strain has emerged, WHO spokeswoman Maria Cheng said. Such evidence would come from tests comparing the genetic makeup of the virus found in the two sisters with that seen in other people. 

"This may be an isolated incident. These were very close contacts, family members," she said. 

Vietnam now has a total of 10 confirmed cases of bird flu - including the eight deaths. An 8-year-old girl remains hospitalized in Ho Chi Minh City while a 4-year-old boy has recovered. 

The two sisters from northern Thai Binh province became sick after attending their brother's wedding reception. Their 31-year-old brother died Jan. 14 but was cremated so no samples were available to determine whether he also had bird flu. 

The women, whose identities have not been released, were admitted to the Institute of Clinical Research for Tropical Medicine on Jan. 13 and died Jan. 23. Their sister-in-law also was hospitalized with a respiratory illness, but she has recovered. 

"The investigation failed to reveal a specific event, such as contact with sick poultry, or an environmental source to explain these cases," WHO said of the sisters' deaths. "At the same time, such exposures cannot be discounted." 

The bird flu now hitting Asia spread between humans during an outbreak in Hong Kong in 1997, killing six people. 

In that outbreak, the virus passed from infected people to health workers but then lost its punch and failed to transmit further. Symptoms were very mild or nonexistent in those who caught the virus from patients rather than birds. 

Experts believe Hong Kong may have averted a global pandemic that year by cracking down hard. Once it discovered it had the virus, it slaughtered its entire chicken population in three days. 

The current bird flu outbreak has spread to 47 of Vietnam's 64 provinces - more than two-thirds of the country. 

Vietnam has vowed tougher measures to control the epidemic, including a nationwide ban on transporting poultry. Bird flu has now killed or forced the slaughter of more than 7 million chickens and ducks. 




24A. Easterbrook, Gregg. THE PROGRESS PARADOX: HOW LIFE GETS BETTER  WHILE PEO-PLE FEEL WORSE. RH, 2003. HC, 376pp. It is indeed a terrific  paradox. They (the sinister manipulators known as politicians and  industrialists) keep telling us things are getting better and better every day. The  stock market is back up, interest rates are down (which is up), productivity  is up, there are now about 15 different kinds of award ceremonies for "entertainment" we are told we love, we have more cars in the driveway  than ever before, more electronics with which to con-nect ourselves with all  the other modernized humans out there, more of everything conceivable.  Except happiness. Oopsy, that last one is a blip on the radar screen, and the damned thing just won't go away. I submit that nearly all people of conscience, all people who don't buy into the ma-terialist-corporate  ruse, and even billions of people who are so basically stupid that they  couldn't spit out a single coherent sentence about what's bothering them, are suffering from a common ailment-a large, dark, cavernous hole within  them that no amount of further glutting with the gadgets and other things  they keep telling us we love can fill to the point of satisfaction. No  matter how much we have, there is a gnawing emptiness which cannot be filled  by anything. How odd that this craving should coincide with the explosion  of opportunities to acquire virtually anything and everything that one  could want out of a materialistic existence-to the point of eliminating all challenges or stimuli to continue growing. There's your problem,  people. That's why you're not buying books and why Arcturus is going under.  What're you gonna do about it? $24.95



Mercury Damage Seen in Children of Fish Eaters
	
2 hours, 19 minutes ago
	
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By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Correspondent 

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Children whose mothers eat seafood high in mercury while pregnant can suffer irreparable brain damage, researchers reported on Friday. 

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The report comes the same week as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (news - web sites) doubled its estimate of how many newborns had unsafe levels of mercury in their blood. 


The study, done by an international group led by researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health, also showed that children exposed to mercury in the womb may suffer permanent damage to their heart function. 


"We found that both prenatal and postnatal mercury exposure affects brain functions and that they seem to affect different targets in the brain," Philippe Grandjean, who led the study, said in a statement. 


Grandjean and colleagues studied more than 1,000 mothers and children living in Denmark's Faroe Islands. Residents there eat large amounts of fish, much of it contaminated with mercury. 


They measured mercury in umbilical cord blood taken from the children at birth and then in hair samples taken at ages 7 and 14. 


Most of the mothers were suffering from mercury contamination, with their own hair levels at childbirth on average above 1 microgram per gram, the limit recommended bythe EPA and the independent, nongovernment National Research Council (news - web sites). 


BRAIN SIGNAL IRREGULARITIES 


Writing in the Journal of Pediatrics, Grandjean and colleagues in Denmark and Japan said they put electrodes on the heads of the children to measure electrical signals in the brain. They found delays in brain signaling, and the higher the mother and child's mercury load at birth, the more distinct the irregularities. 


They also found these neurological changes affected heart function. The children with the most mercury in their blood were less capable of maintaining the normal variability of the heart rate needed to secure proper oxygen supply to the body, Grandjean's team found. 


Earlier this week an EPA researcher published a report doubling the estimates of how may U.S. infants have unsafe levels of mercury in their blood. 


The researcher, Kathryn Mahaffey, estimated that 630,000 infants were born in a 12-month period between 1999 and 2000 with blood mercury levels higher than 5.8 parts per billion, the EPA's level of concern. This is more than double the previous estimate of 300,000 infants. 


"It is important to note that this estimate is preliminary in nature, and is based on recently available information about mercury in umbilical cord blood versus maternal blood," Mahaffey said in a statement. 


"EPA is still reviewing these new studies and their potential implications." 


Her full study is available on the Internet at http://www.epa.gov/waterscience/fish/forum/2004/presentations/m onday/mahaffey.pdf. 


Jane Houlihan of the Environmental Working Group said the study showed the government needs to limit emissions by coal-burning power plants, which are the top source of mercury contamination in the United States. 


Her group called for the Food and Drug Administration (news - web sites) to issue a list of fish that are lower in mercury and thus safer for pregnant women to eat, such as wild salmon and haddock. 

	 


The EPA says the most contaminated fish include shark, tilefish, king mackerel and swordfish. 

Sources of healthy omega-3 fatty acids other than fish include walnuts and flaxseed oil, and some fortified foods. 



Mad Cow Madness Exposed on Dreamland 20-Feb-2004

On our Dreamland science report this week Linda Moulton Howe interviews Mad Cow expert Giuseppe Legname, who says that U.S. efforts to control this disease are so bad, he's stopped eating meat. Dave Louthan, who actually killed the mad cow on December 26, 2003, said the same thing on Dreamland recently. Now Tom Ellestad, owner of Vern's Moses Lake Meats, where the cow was slaughtered, confirms that the cow was not a "downer." This means there is no way to identify which cows have the disease unless every one of them is tested, and we now only test about 20,000 cows a year out of 35 million. The U.S. says it will test 40,000 cows during the upcoming year. France tests about 50,000 cattle every week, and Japan tests all cattle that are slaughtered for food. Dr. Legname also says we need to find out whether dicalcium phosphate, which is made from cow bones, carries Mad Cow prions. Dicalcium phosphate is used in toothpaste. 

Jon BonnŽ reports in msnbc.com that Vern Moses says the cow later found to have Mad Cow Disease could walk when it was slaughtered, contrary to the recent U.S. Department of Agriculture statement that the animal was a downer. 

Like Dave Louthan, who enjoys his job and is an enthusiastic meat eater, Ellestad is no conspiracy buff. He was originally reluctant to contradict the USDA, since many of the inspectors are his friends. He says, "I really believed USDA was going to address this...and say, 'Whoops, it looks like that cow was able to walk and we need to address that issue.' It did not happen, and so this is where we're at now. 

"Our business had been devastated," he says. "Our reputation had been maligned and the USDA knew the truth but had chosen not to make the truth about the BSE (Mad Cow Disease) not being a downer available to the public." He has given an 18-page affidavit, with 20 pages of supporting documents, to the U.S. House Government Reform Committee. 

Vern's stopped accepting downer cows in February 2003, and he required all the farms that sent him animals and all drivers transporting the cattle to sign agreements that they would not load any cow that could not walk onto their trailers. One of his documents is a copy of an agreement signed by Randy Hull Jr., the driver who transported the infected cow, agreeing not to bring Vern's any downers. Hull states that the three cows he picked up from the Sunny Dene Ranch, in Mabton, Washington, where the infected cow was kept after being transported from Canada, were not downers. He says, "The animals each walked onto my trailer." 

Meanwhile, Randolph E. Schmid reports that Italian scientists have found a new form of Mad Cow Disease that more closely resembles Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease, which infects humans, than the usual cow form of the disease. While studying eight cows with Mad Cow, they found that two of them had brain damage resembling the genetic version of human CJD, which infects older people and is sometimes confused with Alzheimer's. This is not the variant form of CJD that comes from eating infected meat. So far, there's no evidence that this new form of Mad Cow has infected any humans, but a new variation of any disease, especially one that more closely resembles the human version, is always a bad sign that it could be easier for humans to become infected with Mad Cow in the future. 


More Cows of Infected Canadian Herd Found 
	
1 hour, 21 minutes ago
	
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By ROXANA HEGEMAN, Associated Press Writer 

KINGMAN, Kan. - While farmers tried to boost consumer confidence shaken by the country's first case of mad cow disease, federal agriculture officials announced they had tracked down five more animals from a herd of Canadian cattle that included the infected Holstein, slaughtered in Washington state. 


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Slideshow: Mad Cow Disease

	 

The finding brings to 19 the number of cows located from the 81 head of Canadian cattle that entered the country in 2001. 


Also in Washington, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (news - web sites) said it has found prohibited animal tissue in feed from six Canadian animal feed companies since the mad cow discovery last month. The discovery is significant because it may help investigators trace the source of infection. 


Feed tainted with tissue of an infected animal is the most likely means of spreading mad cow disease, a fatal brain-wasting illness. 


Mad cow is a concern because humans can get a related illness, variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (news - web sites), from eating contaminated meat. That concern prompted countries to close their borders to American beef last month. 


Also Friday, top agriculture officials from the United States, Canada and Mexico failed to reach agreement in Washington, D.C., on reopening their borders to beef products and live cattle. 


The United States has been pressing Mexico, a large market for American beef, to lift its total ban on U.S. beef and cattle that was imposed last month after scientists diagnosed the U.S. case of mad cow disease. 


Canada wants both the United States, its biggest trading partner in cattle and beef, and Mexico to lift restrictions that took effect after the Canadian mad cow case in May. 


U.S. Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman said no decisions were made about resuming trade. 


The United States for now has put off allowing Canada to ship across the border young cattle - considered less likely to have the brain-wasting disease because of its long incubation period. 


Mexican Agriculture Secretary Javier Usabiaga said his country would reopen its borders once Mexican officials and consumers were confident that beef from the north was safe. 


___ 


On the Net: 


USDA mad cow pages: http://www.usda.gov/BSE/ 



Asian Bird Flu Makes Way to Indonesia 
	
Sun Jan 25, 5:12 PM ET
	
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By DANIEL LOVERING, Associated Press Writer 

BANGKOK, Thailand - Indonesia became the seventh country in Asia to confirm an outbreak of deadly bird flu, as the World Health Organization (news - web sites) warned Sunday the virus could be resistant to basic human influenza drugs. 


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The disease has already affected millions of chickens in Indonesia, said Sofjan Sudardjat, a senior agriculture official. But the virus has not yet crossed over to humans, he said. 


Indonesian officials had earlier denied the diseases' presence, but the Indonesian Veterinarians Association said several independent investigations had revealed that bird flu had already killed millions of chickens over the past several months. 


Asia is on a region-wide health alert, with governments slaughtering millions of chickens to contain outbreaks in Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, South Korea (news - web sites), Japan and Taiwan. Vietnam has slaughtered more than 3 million chickens while Thailand has exterminated some 9 million. On Sunday, the Thai government enlisted hundreds of soldiers and 60 prisoners to help with the mass cull. 


Scientists believe people get the disease through contact with sick birds, raising concerns it might mutate and link with regular influenza to create a form that could be transmitted from person to person, fostering the next human flu pandemic. 


Concerns are particularly high because the bird flu virus caught by humans appears resistant to amantadine and rimantadine, the cheaper anti-viral drugs used to treat regular influenza. 


"This is a disease that's appearing in the developing world. So what you want is affordable drugs," WHO spokesman Dick Thompson said. "Should this move from human to human - and it hasn't yet, I want to stress that - then it's going to be a real challenge." 


So far, there has been no evidence of person-to-person transmission. But farms across Asia have been devastated but Vietnam and Thailand are the only countries this year where humans have caught the avian flu. There have been six confirmed deaths in Vietnam and one suspected fatality in Thailand. 


According to WHO, the virus is resistant to key anti-influenza drugs, and an effective vaccine is probably more than six months away. 


But "that's too late for the influenza season in Asia," said Peter Cordingley, a regional spokesman for WHO. 


Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, faced with accusations that he covered up the outbreak, said his government had suspected that bird flu had struck his nation a "couple of weeks" ago. But he said he didn't tell the public because he feared mass panic. 


The outbreak has devastated Thailand's chicken export industry - the world's fourth largest. Thailand shipped about 500,000 tons of chicken worth $1.3 billion in 2003. 


Many countries have imposed bans on poultry products from Thailand, and the prime minister said Saturday that overall exports could drop by as much as 0.4 percentage points and the gross domestic product could slip by as much as 0.1 percentage points as a result. 


Thaksin met Sunday with hundreds of worried chicken farmers, some of whom alleged his government tried to cover up the outbreak to protect poultry exports. Until Friday, officials had insisted that millions of birds were sick with other diseases. 


But Thaksin acknowledged Sunday that officials suspected a bird flu outbreak for weeks, and said he failed to inform the public of the government's concerns because tests for the virus had not yet been completed. 


On Wednesday, Thailand will host a meeting of foreign, agriculture and health ministers from bird flu-affected countries and international influenza experts to devise strategies they might use to thwart the spread of the disease. 


Thailand has also planned to send representatives abroad to allay customer worries. 

	 


In Vietnam, an 8-year-old girl was being treated for bird flu in a Ho Chi Minh City hospital. Two boys, aged six and seven, are seriously sick in Thailand and two others are thought to have been exposed. 



Discount Cards Help in Mad Cow Recall 

Thu Jan 22, 3:29 PM ET

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By PEGGY ANDERSEN, Associated Press Writer 

SEATTLE - During the recent mad-cow beef recall, one supermarket chain used its "preferred customer" discount cards to identify and warn shoppers who had bought the suspect m