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In the eighties, when I traveled eight months of the year, I often went to sleep watching TV. One night in 1986 I woke up at 2 A.M. and listened to Charlie Rose interviewing an elderly English pathologist describing a strange disease afflicting cows. This disease, when transmitted to humans, was killing folks. Because financial ramifications were overwhelming, the English government and farmers were in denial.. Explaining that nothing, including autoclaving and heating to 1200 degrees, would kill this organism, the pathologist recommended that all English farmers with sick cattle have entire herds put down. Surgical instruments used on BSE patients had to be discarded. By this time I was wide awake.
The disease started to show up when English farmers began feeding cattle imported meal made from carcasses of sheep. The responsible organism was in the brain and spinal tissue. Cattle feed containing ground up brain and spinal tissue caused the disease. Her prediction was accurate-the government would cover up the problem until it was too late-many folks would get sick and die.

The program on Mad cow was in 1986. For years I looked for newspaper articles on the subject-there were none! It seemed like a bad dream. Why wouldn’t anyone pay attention to such a story? Ten years later Americans have heard about mad cow-but even now no one mentions the fact that the organism is indestructible. That little fact, to me is the scary part.

The media in America has not paid much attention to the problem. If you search the Internet you will find over 25,000 references to Mad Cow disease in the USA. The European Union has made an effort to confront the disease by offering to fund (seventy cents on the dollar) the putting down of sick German cattle.
Farmers in the USA use a product made from ground up carcasses of dead animals-this includes ground up spinal and brain tissue. There are cases of Mad Cow in the USA. The exact source seems variable and in some cases unknown. There have been some cases in England where Mad Cow has been mistaken for Alzheimer’s. What does all this have to do with gardening? Bone meal is made with ground up bones, including ground up spinal tissue. Not only is bone meal expensive, by the time it reaches gardeners most of the nutrients have been removed. Right now is a good time to stop using bone meal.

This is a copy of my column, printed in the Bonners Ferry Herald March 19th 1997.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Italian researchers said on Tuesday they had found a new variation of mad cow disease, which raised questions about whether it can arise naturally in cattle and about how people develop the related brain ailment CJD.
The brains of cattle with the new variation look different from cows with the classic form of mad cow disease, called bovine spongiform encephalopathy, the researchers said.
They look much more like the brains of people with Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease or CJD -- not the kind that people catch from eating infected beef, but the kind that arises mysteriously in about one in a million people worldwide.
More worrying, although the cattle were old, they had no visible symptoms of BSE and were only diagnosed after routine slaughter.
Paul Brown, an expert on BSE and CJD at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, said he did not believe the study implied cattle with hidden BSE were, unknown to doctors, infecting people who eat beef.
"It's probably another 'don't worry' observation but it does deserve some study," Brown said in a telephone interview. "There is no reason to suppose it might show up in human beings in some weird form."
Salvatore Monaco of the Istituto Zooprofilattico Sperimentale delle Lombardia in Brescia and colleagues analyzed the brains of eight cows aged 5 to 15 years that had tested positive for BSE.
The cattle all seemed healthy when slaughtered. But because of European fears over BSE, which decimated British herds in the 1980s, all cattle over the age of 30 months must be tested for the brain-destroying disease.
Signs of the cattle had "classic" BSE, believed to have arisen in cattle fed now-banned feed made from ground-up sheep remains. But two had a variation that looks very different.

PROTEIN GOO
Instead of having sponge-like holes, their brains had buildups of amyloid plaques -- lumps of protein goo that are seen in the brains of some people with CJD.
And different parts of the brain were affected.
Always deadly, CJD is incurable and except for a few clearly genetic cases no one knows where it comes from.
The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, which published the report, said it raised the question of whether some people may have developed CJD from eating cattle infected with this newly found variation.
But Brown said there is no evidence this is the case -- because there has been no epidemic of classical CJD.
A new variation of CJD, called vCJD, arose in Britain and a few European countries on the heels of the BSE epidemic in cattle. It has been fairly well linked to eating infected beef products and has killed 139 people in Britain.
The researchers said their findings raised the possibility that, just as some people get "sporadic" or unexplained CJD, some cattle may get sporadic BSE.
This would be disturbing to the beef industry, which has tried to eliminate BSE by changing the way cattle are fed.
"It opens the door to the possibility that there could be human BSE infections that don't look like stereotypical BSE," said Brown, who reviewed the study ahead of publication.
"If it doesn't look like stereotypical BSE what might it look like? It might look like sporadic CJD. Is there any evidence that this might have happened? Answer -- none whatsoever because the number of individuals who have been verified as having sporadic CJD ... has not increased in the U.K. since the onset of variant CJD."

How can cattle become infected with Mad Cow or Bovine Spongiform Encephalitis also known as BSE?

Herds of cattle in Britain were first infected with Mad Cow prions in the early 1980’s. The origin of the infections was traced to protein supplements that included the ground up remains of sheep and cows. Cattle and pets in the USA are also fed protein supplements including ground up remains of sheep and cattle. The FDA, in 1997 banned the use of this protein meal in cattle feed because scientists believed the ingredients were responsible for the spread of BSE.

The question remains-who enforces compliance with the FDA 1997 ban on protein supplements containing ground up spinal and brain tissue? It might come as a surprise that the government relies on companies to inspect themselves-this is referred to as the “partnership” between government and industry. It’s an arrangement that results in non-compliance. The government regulators can suggest solutions to problems, they can’t and won’t enforce compliance. After all we are talking about the 3.2 billion dollar rendering industry and the 20 billion dollar animal feed industry., not to mention the beef industry. Reuters News service reported that Purina Mills Inc. acknowledged (Friday Jan 26. 2001), that it sold feed containing meat and bone meal made from ruminate animals, a practice banned since 1997. The article goes on to say that Purina, who owns 49 feed mills in the USA, “voluntarily” initiated a product recall and notified regulatory agencies about the recall. In other words Purina has been illegally adding protein supplements to their product since 1997. The “partnership” with government and business at work again. If companies are regulating themselves what good are our regulatory agencies ? Why doesn’t the headline read Purina fined millions as FDA enforces its 1997 ban on adding protein supplements to pet and cattle food containing spinal and brain tissue?
A New York Times article dated January 11th, written by Sandra Blakeslee reported that US feed companies, pet food companies, pharmaceutical companies and nutrition firms have been importing possibly contaminated bovine parts and rendered animal protein from Britain since 1989 and 1997. After Britain made it illegal to sell the stuff at home they simply sold it overseas.

     Both CJD and BSE are the result of infection caused by a prion-a small piece of protein that connects to proteins in brain tissue, replicates, and turns the brain into a sponge-like mush.. Sandra Blakeslee points out in the Times article that scientists generally agree that BJD and BSE-like diseases spontaneously occur in one of every million humans cows, sheep and many other mammals. Since 36 million cattle alone are slaughtered each year about 36 cows infected with prions could be entering the food chain. Add all the other rendered animals and think about it. Over a lifetime an average cow, pig, game farm elk or deer, cat or dog will literally be consuming the body parts of thousands of different animals in their lifetime
       The US has an epidemic of Mad Deer Disease and Mad Elk Disease., also known as chronic wasting disease. Hunters that kill deer in Colorado are required to turn in the heads so they can be tested for chronic wasting disease. There are documented cases in Colorado of young deer hunters in their twenties and thirties dying of CJD, the human form of Mad Cow.
        In summary, it appears to me that our beef supply is not and has never been protected from Mad Cow disease. Our government has a hands off policy when it comes to large industries and will not allow regulatory agencies to enforce laws that protect the public. Regulatory agencies like the DEQ, FDA and EPA exist to protect companies that break laws passed to protect the public.

ROME (Reuters) - Italy's government and the beef industry were at pains Wednesday to keep consumers from panicking over the discovery of the country's first suspected case of vCJD, the human form of mad cow disease. Health and agriculture officials confirmed that the suspected victim of variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (vCJD) was a 25-year old woman in hospital in Sicily, but they assured the public there was nothing to fear from beef today. "Consumers can have confidence and buy beef," Health Minister Girolamo Sirchia told reporters. "Now meat is safe. Today's case is scary but it is a fear that refers to the past and that we don't need to have anymore." The patient is a student who fell ill 10 months ago. She may be flown to London for specialist treatment, newspapers said. Italy has identified 53 cases of mad cow disease-- bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) -- since it discovered its first native case in January 2001. The disease vCJD is the human variant of mad cow disease. The discovery of a possible case of vCJD had repercussions across Europe. In Strasbourg, the European Parliament demanded new powers for the European Union to help protect consumers from contaminated meat. "I think we should take warning from the new case in Italy and try to convince member countries to implement EU legislation as soon as possible," Swedish liberal Karl Erik Olsson, author of the non-binding resolution, told Reuters. Olsson said the long-planned vote was not prompted by the suspected Italian case but the news had highlighted the problem. In Italy, the Association of Meat Producers tried to assure consumers that regulations had been adopted. Luigi Scordamalia, the group's secretary general, said: "Our meat has never been as safe as it is today." "There may be some initial concern, but consumers will realize that all of the norms that have been adopted guarantee the safety of our meat," he said. News of Italy's first reported case of vCJD dominated headlines, giving the beef industry unwelcome bad publicity just as it was getting over the shock of the discovery of BSE in Italian herds last year. "There could be a drop in sales today, tomorrow, the day after tomorrow, but there shouldn't be any structural impact because consumers will realize it's safe," Scordamalia said. British scientists discovered BSE in 1986 and linked the disease a decade later to vCJD. In Europe, vCJD has killed about 100 people, almost all in Britain. It is thought that the disease is contracted by eating meat tainted by BSE and has an incubation period of six to eight years.

A killer is on the loose. As "mad cow" disease, it has taken more than 120 lives and devastated cattle farmers in England, elsewhere in Europe and Japan. Now as chronic wasting disease in deer and elk, it threatens to cripple economies through the Rocky Mountain region - and possibly much more. How concerned should we be? Recent research points to an unsettling possibility. This family of diseases - called transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (TSEs) - may be more sinister than even pessimistic scientists first envisioned. The disease is now found in the wild in five states, on the east side of the Mississippi River and the Western Slope of the Rocky Mountains. It's found in captive animals in six states and two Canadian provinces. Once symptoms develop, each TSE is fatal, caused by a mutant protein called a prion. Spongiform vividly describes the diseased brain tissue: It is spongelike, filled with microscopic holes. In laboratory tests, the National Institutes of Health found that a TSE can rest undetected in one animal before attacking another in a more virulent form. There is no proof that chronic wasting disease can infect humans, but there is evidence that it might be possible. Test-tube experiments show that human proteins are as susceptible to chronic wasting disease as to mad cow disease. Three young venison eaters have come down with a TSE, but federal investigators were unable to prove any linkage. It is now clear that British authorities stumbled in responding to the mad cow threat. Seeking to ease public fears and protect economic interests, government officials said for 10 years that there was no danger to humans from the disease that was attacking cattle. Then people started dying. And the world witnessed grim, almost medieval scenes of pyres of burning cattle in the English countryside. During its decade of denial, Great Britain banned feeding cattle a protein supplement called meat and bone meal (MBM), which was determined to be at the root of mad cow disease. Yet, during that same period, Great Britain exported millions of tons of the same protein meal throughout the world. The full impact of that mistake is still not known, but it's feared that mad cow may break out in 10 to 15 additional countries. How have we responded in America? Without a sense of urgency. The United States stalled for 10 years before banning the feeding of MBM to cattle in this country. Then, after Britain and the European Union halted all exports of MBM for public health concerns, the United States saw a trade opportunity, becoming the world's leading exporter. One result is that cattle in other countries that may have eaten American meat and bone meal are being exported back to the United States, as are meat products. Mexico, for example, only implemented a ban on feeding MBM to cattle this year, and it exports 1 million cattle annually to the United States. Even though there are questions about Mexico's enforcement of the ban, to date no case of mad cow disease has been reported in either country. A study by a Harvard University-based group said that the ban on feeding MBM to American cattle should insulate the United States from a major mad cow outbreak. However, the General Accounting Office, the congressional watchdog agency, has been sharply critical of the ban's enforcement in the United States. Scientists didn't know chronic wasting disease was a TSE until Beth Williams, a young Colorado researcher, reached that conclusion in 1977. The disease was first noticed almost 10 years earlier, but was believed to be a digestive tract illness. During the decade between the onset of the disease and its classification as a TSE - and for at least a few years afterward - some deer and elk were released from infected pens back into the wild and were shipped between facilities. It is not known whether these practices led to CWD in wild deer and elk. In a 1992 paper, Williams warned that the advent of elk game ranching posed a significant threat for the spread of the disease. Even so, during the decade of the '90s, Colorado permitted wholesale expansion of elk ranches. The game ranch risk is threefold. Regardless of which way the disease might pass through the fence, free-ranging elk and deer have nose-to-nose contact with captive animals. Animals escape from, or break into, the ranches. Captive animals are transported in commerce around the state, across state lines and to other countries. Another critical question in the livestock-rich region is whether CWD might cross the species barrier and infect cattle. The consequences would be horrific. This has occurred under experimental conditions, but there is no proof that it can happen outside a laboratory. "This is an extraordinarily contagious disease," Dr. Paul Brown, former head of the federal Food and Drug Administration's TSE committee, said last year of CWD. "This is explosive." ___ Contact the Rocky Mountain News at http://www.rockymountainnews.com. Note - This story/series ran in the Rocky Mountain News on June 1.

Hunters who feasted on their prey at a cabin in northern Wisconsin-and later died of brain diseases-probably did not contract “mad cow disease” from their meaty banquets, U.S. health officials said yesterday.
Two of the men who died were diagnosed with Creutzfelkdt~Jakob disease, a human version of mad cow disease, but it was likely a naturally occurring form the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported. We didn’t find any association,” said Vincent Hsu, an epidemiologist at the CDC’s National Center for Infectious Diseases.
Creutzfeldft-Jalcob disease, or CJD, occurs naturally in about 1 in a million people. It is incurable and fatal, and produces holes in the brain that lead to dementia and death.
Since the l990s, a second form has been found in. people, almost all of them in Britain, and linked to an outbreak of a related disease in cattle called bovine spongjform encephalopathy, or “mad cow disease.”
Doctors have found that people can contract a variant of CJD from eating BSE-infected beef. About 130 people, mostly in Britain, have died from the new variant CJD.
Elk and deer in parts of the United States contract a related disease called chronic wasting disease, and federal health officials investigated when hunters in Wisconsin developed CJD.
- Compiled from reports by the Associated Press

When it comes to diagnosing in humans a condition similar to mad cow disease, a patient’s nose may provide doctors with some important clues. Tests on nine people who died of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease found that the nasal tissue of all the victims contained defective protein particles that have been linked to the illness, according to a study in the New England Journal of Medicine. The nasal tissue of 11 patients with other nerve problems showed no such particles.
The only definitive tests for most cases of Creutzfeldt-Jakob require examination of the brain after death. There is no treatment for the disease, which in cows is called bovine spongiform encephalopathy. Italian Scientists Discover New Form of Mad Cow Disease

Agriculture Dept: Bovine Suspected of Mad Cow Born Before Feed Ban

June 14, 2005

WASHINGTON - The U.S. Agriculture department announces Monday that a cow suspected of carrying mad cow disease was born before the U.S. implemented a feed ban prohibiting the use of cattle remains as a protein supplement for cattle, goats, and sheep.

The suspected bovine had been tested in November and cleared of the disease, but a new round of tests show evidence it may have been infected, which prompted the Agriculture Department Friday to insure consumers the cow had never made it anywhere near the feed chain.

Brain samples of the cow were sent to England for further testing, results of which are expected in roughly two weeks. A new case of mad cow could delay the start of beef exports to Asia, where trade has been closed since the U.S. announced its first mad- cow case in December 2003.

Analysts predict the latest findings should not have a great negative effect on beef sales, as two cases out of millions of cattle processed each year would not be seen as a great threat.

After the 2003 announcement of the first U.S. mad cow case, beef sales dropped drastically, cattle prices plummeted.

On Monday, cattle prices fell, but shares of Tyson Foods closed higher, which analysts also attribute to Tyson's strong pork and poultry operations.

The fear is that if the cow tests positive and its origin is found to be in the heart of U.S. cattle country, the beef market would suffer tremendously.

Netherlands Confirms First Case Of Human Mad Cow Disease

April 22, 2005 6:40 a.m. EST

W.J. Brown, All Headline News

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands (AHN) - Dutch health officials have confirmed that a 26 year old dutch woman has been diagnosed with Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease, the human form of Mad Cow.

Jan van Wijngaarde, an inspector with the Health Ministry, said the woman's "prognosis is poor."

The un-named patient is believed to have contracted the disease by eating tainted beef, the Health Ministry said in a statement.

Bas Kuik, Health Ministry spokesperson, said the woman, has never lived outside the Netherlands, was most likely infected before 1997, when the country introduced tight restrictions on beef imports.

"Beef in the Netherlands is safe because all susceptible cows are tested for BSE when they are slaughtered," the ministry statement included.

149 people in Britain, and another 10 in other countries including Canada, the United States, France, Italy, Ireland, and Japan, are known to have contracted the disease.

Mad cow disease has long been thought to occur in just the brains and nervous systems of infected animals. But scientists reported Friday that the proteins thought to cause the disease can travel to other organs as well.

The research is based on experiments with mice, but if it is borne out in other species, it may suggest that no part of an infected animal is safe to eat. In humans, the disease manifests as a fatal brain infection.

In the mouse experiments, reported in the journal Science, researchers in Switzerland worked with the proteins thought to be the infectious agent in mad cow disease. When these prions were given to mice that had been infected with chronic diseases of the liver, kidney and pancreas, they made their way to the infected organs.

Many countries, including the United States, require the removal of skull, brain, eyes, spinal cord and other nervous tissues from slaughtered animals, because prions are known to accumulate in those tissues. Even in countries with mad cow disease, which include Japan, Canada, Oman, Israel and 20 European countries, meat is considered safe if those tissues are removed, Aguzzi said. But the disease could spread more readily if infections are not obvious or inspections are done sloppily, he said.

Chronically inflamed muscle can also harbor prions, Aguzzi said. While this has yet to be demonstrated in a cow, it has been seen in humans with sporadic Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, which is related to mad cow but arises spontaneously rather than from eating infected beef or some other route.

BRUSSELS, Belgium -- A French goat has become the first to test positive for bovine spongiform encephalopathy, also known as mad-cow disease, the European Union said.

The results were announced Friday after more than two years of testing the remains of the goat. The Brussels-based European Commission recommended continued consumption of goat meat, cheese and milk while the European Food Safety Authority assesses the risks. ''The commission proposes to step up testing to determine if this is an isolated incident,'' the EU's executive arm said.

Mad-cow disease was first diagnosed in the U.K. in 1986 and was transmitted to cattle through feed that included ground-up parts of infected animals.

TORONTO -- The Canadian government confirmed Tuesday its second case of mad cow disease in 10 days, weeks before the United States is set to lift a ban on Canadian cattle imports.

Canadian Agriculture Minister Andy Mitchell said the latest case of mad cow, or bovine spongiform encephalopathy, was discovered in an Alberta cow under 7 years old. That means it was born after a 1997 feed ban in Canada removed the use of ruminants in feed, commonly believed to be the cause of the disease.

Officials stressed that no part of the animal entered the human or animal feed system. Mitchell said the case was unrelated to the Jan. 2 case, also in an Alberta cow.

The case "is not unexpected, as we have already acknowledged that there is a low level of incidence of BSE in North America," Mitchell said. "The rules upon which beef should move between countries should be based on science, and we believe that Canada has clearly followed a scientific approach."

The U.S. Department of Agriculture announced at the beginning of the month that the border could reopen in March. A group of cattlemen has sued to block the lifting of the ban saying it will hurt producers and pose a risk to consumers.

After learning of the second case, the Bush administration said it would stand by its decision to resume Canadian cattle imports, expressing confidence that public health measures in both countries will protect U.S. livestock and consumers.

Mad cow disease eats holes in the brains of cattle. Food contaminated with BSE can afflict humans with a variant of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, which is usually fatal.

Mad cow disease appeared in Britain in 1986 and spread through Europe and Asia, prompting massive destruction of herds and devastating the European beef industry. So far 147 people in Britain, and another 10 elsewhere, are known to have contracted variant Crutzfeld-Jakob Disease since first identified.

Dr. Brian Evans of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency said the cow in the latest case was most likely exposed to feed before the ban came into effect in the fall of 1997, and his agency was investigating.

The Alberta farm feed may had some illegal materials as the system was flushed out, he said.

The border closure by the United States has cost the Canadian beef industry at least $3 billion. Before the trade ban, animals regularly crossed the border and Canada sold more than 70 percent of its live cattle to the United States.

Imports of some packaged beef resumed in the fall of 2003, but it was not until this month that Washington said it would resume trade in live animals under 30 months of age on March 7.

The USDA ruling declared Canada a "minimal-risk region" so that cattle could be shipped into the United States under certain restrictions. The cattle must be slaughtered by the age of 30 months, which scientists say is too young to contract mad cow disease, and they must also be transported in sealed containers to a feedlot or slaughter house.

Under World Health Organization guidelines, a country can still have 11 cases of mad cow disease in a year and still be considered a minimal-risk country.

A U.S. cattlemen's group sued the USDA on Monday to stop it from allowing live cattle and expanded beef imports from Canada. The lawsuit by R-CALF United Stockgrowers of America said the USDA's plan would pose a risk to consumers and U.S. producers.

Allowing the "commingling" of Canadian cattle and beef products with U.S. cattle and products, with no requirement that the beef products be labeled with their country of origin, "will likely interfere with or preclude the resumption of exports of edible bovine products from the United States," the lawsuit said.

Cattle futures closed modestly higher on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. Shares of big U.S. hamburger chains, other restaurant operators and meat processor Tyson Foods Inc. -- all of which had tumbled in 2003 following the disclosure of the first case of mad cow in Canada in a decade -- were trading higher for the most part on Tuesday afternoon.

McDonald's Corp. stock fell 52 cents to close at $31.15 but showed no change in direction after the latest mad-cow announcement. Shares in other companies that took big dives on the 2003 news -- Wendy's International Inc., Tyson, Outback Steakhouse Inc., Jack in the Box Inc., Applebee's International Inc., Bob Evans Farms Inc. and drive-in operator Sonic Corp. -- all were trading fractionally higher for the day.

A 20-month-old steer in northeastern Japan may have had mad cow disease, and if the case is confirmed it could affect Japan's imports of U.S. and Canadian beef, officials said Monday.

A young Holstein killed for meat last week in Fukushima Prefecture, was found to have tested positive for the brain-wasting disease, according to Toshitaka Higashira of the Agricultural Ministry.

If confirmed, it would be one of the youngest cows to test positive for mad cow -- the common name for bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE -- in the world. The youngest as of 2005 was a 20-month-old cow found with the disease in Britain in 1992, according to Japan's Food Safety Commission.

Vice Agriculture Minister Mamoru Ishihara told reporters that, if confirmed, the case "would be of a nature that would affect import restrictions on beef from the U.S. and Canada."

Japan in December eased a two-year-old ban on U.S. beef to allow imports from cows aged 20 months or younger which did not contain body parts thought at risk of the disease. It reinstated that ban a month later after a shipment of U.S. veal was found to contain prohibited bones.

The U.S., in contrast, requires removal of at-risk parts from animals older than 30 months, although there is a short list of tissues that must be removed from younger animals. U.S. officials argue that younger cows face minuscule risks of BSE.

Japan's ban on U.S. beef has been detrimental to a trading relationship worth millions of dollars to American producers. Japan's market was worth US$1.4 billion annually when its government banned American beef in response to the first U.S. case of mad cow disease in 2003.

Separately, Ishihara said the confirmation of a fifth case of BSE in Canada over the weekend would not influence Japan's import policy.

Mad cow is a degenerative nerve disease in cattle. Eating contaminated meat products has been linked to the rare but fatal variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.

Japan has confirmed 24 cases of mad cow since 2001, including 3 cases this year, according to the Agricultural Ministry. There have been three confirmed cases of the disease in the U.S. Tests for the disease are more stringent in Japan than in the U.S. (AP)

First goat found with mad-cow disease