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New findings on prions suggest BSE risk may be higher than thought
The Canadian Press ^ | 1-20-2005

Posted on 01/20/2005 4:42:19 PM PST by M. Espinola

ORONTO, Jan 20th, 2005 (The Canadian Press via COMTEX) -- The human food chain may not be as well protected from BSE as everyone hopes, scientists admitted Thursday in the wake of publication of new research showing the malformed proteins that cause the brain-wasting disease can be found in more tissues than previously thought.

Experts admit the findings are worrisome, but note the additional risk, if confirmed, may still be low because it is believed there is very little bovine spongiform encephalopathy - mad cow disease - in current cattle herds.

"I don't want to provoke hysteria here," senior author Dr. Adriano Aguzzi said in an interview from Zurich, where he is a researcher at the institute of neuropathology at University Hospital.

"The bad news is that the prions are likely to distribute in the body more broadly than we would have thought possible - and that's obviously bad news.

"But ... the good news is there is very little BSE left in Europe and there has always been very little BSE in North America."

A prion expert at the University of Toronto said if the findings are confirmed in cows - the research was done in mice - current regulations aimed at keeping high-risk meats from entering the food chain will have to be reconsidered.

"The specified risk material ban is to protect us from being exposed to BSE prions. If there's a way for BSE prions to circumvent this barrier to actually propagate in muscle (meat), then we're in trouble again," Dr. Neil Cashman said.

"I think it's a clear threat and it deserves ample consideration."

But the director of animal health laboratory services at the Canadian Food Inspection Agency said it is too soon to conclude the risk of acquiring variant Creutzfeld-Jakob disease - the human form of BSE - from eating beef is higher than previously thought.

"Are we concerned about it? Too early to tell," Dr. Shane Renwick said.

"We certainly are very interested in it. And I think there'll be a lot of interest around the world in this research. But it is preliminary in nature."

Renwick defended the current regulations, built around ensuring that tissues considered high risk - brains and spinal cord, gut and lymphatic tissue - don't enter the food chain.

"Given what we know I think the firewall is excellent," he said from Ottawa.

The research was published online Thursday by the journal Science.

Researchers from Zurich, the Institute of Neurology in London and Yale University School of Medicine set out to see if there was a link between inflammation and prions.

Their theory was that inflammation might provoke migration to and propagation of prions in tissues where they are not normally found.

The scientists injected prions into mice suffering from one of five different conditions causing inflammation in the kidney, pancreas or liver. (Those organs, normally thought to be prion-free, were randomly selected.) They then looked to see if they could detect the misfolded proteins in those organs.

They did, in all of the mice.

"Three organs, five different inflammatory conditions - this makes a very tight case," Aguzzi said.

"I have hardly any doubt that these findings can be extrapolated to additional organs as well."

Cashman pointed out a caveat, calling it "a ray of hope." The prions used in the experiment were the type that cause scrapie, the brain-wasting disease that afflicts sheep.

Scrapie is believed to have jumped the species barrier to cows - triggering BSE - but has not been found to be a direct risk to humans.

The scrapie prion and the one that cause BSE don't work exactly the same way, Cashman noted. But it's crucial that additional research is done to see if what happens in mice will also happen in cattle.

"Clearly the experiments have to be done with inflamed bovine muscle," he said.

Aguzzi agreed, but said he cannot work with such large animals in the laboratories in Zurich. Instead, his team is testing the thesis in sheep.

"I predict that they (the results) are probably very well extrapolated to sheep," he said.

"I don't know how much of this will hold true for the cow and this needs experimentation. It could be either way."

In the interval, authorities should stringently enforce regulations aimed at ensuring sick cows don't make it into the food chain, Aguzzi said. "If sick cows were reliably not entering the human food chain, then there would be no reason to worry because of our new findings."


TOPICS: Culture/Society; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: ancientautopsies; bse; cannibalism; canuckistan; cjd; creutzfeldtjakob; foodsupply; health; helixmakemineadouble; kuru; madcow; madcowdisease; prion; prions; tse
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To: Carry_Okie
It is interesting that Mad Cow Disease hasn't shown up in dogs that eat "beef by-products" more often than humans do

I have questioned this myself.

Ugh, if anyone has it, it's going to be me. I lived in Germany during 1999-2001, and I ate at least once a week at McDonalds.

21 posted on 01/20/2005 7:42:26 PM PST by riri
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To: M. Espinola
If sick cows were reliably not entering the human food chain, then there would be no reason to worry because of our new findings."

Sicks cows do reliably enter the food chain, I read. Only massive doses of antibiotics keep them standing.

Even that doesn't help them for long, but they get slaughtered just in time so they can walk to their death.

Or so I've read.

22 posted on 01/20/2005 7:49:22 PM PST by secretagent
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To: Carry_Okie
What credence do you give to the hypothetical role of organophosphates as an alternative to prions as the cause of Mad Cow?

Never heard of that hypothesis before, but I'm quite doubtful. Depending on the organophosphate and the amount of the exposure/ingestion, vertebrates can recover. How would the spongiform encephalopathy on autopsy be explained?

Clinical aspects of percutaneous poisoning by the chemical warfare agent VX: effects of application site and decontamination.

If you're not familiar with PubMed, check "Related Articles" on the link.

23 posted on 01/20/2005 8:00:50 PM PST by neverdem (May you be in heaven a half hour before the devil knows that you're dead.)
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To: Dog Gone
Boxerbovine is an offshoot erratic strain which has been isolated from spreading to the entire nation for at least four years. :)


24 posted on 01/20/2005 8:44:57 PM PST by M. Espinola (Freedom is never free!)
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To: secretagent

Very well taken point.


25 posted on 01/20/2005 8:46:05 PM PST by M. Espinola (Freedom is never free!)
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To: Fury
Scrapie can also occur in goats What would the effects be in relation to goats milk or cheese, if any?
26 posted on 01/20/2005 8:49:50 PM PST by M. Espinola (Freedom is never free!)
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To: riri

I went to the supermarket, returned home and read this thing & posted it. I am still making the meat sauce though :)


27 posted on 01/20/2005 8:51:16 PM PST by M. Espinola (Freedom is never free!)
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To: neverdem
Never heard of that hypothesis before, but I'm quite doubtful. Depending on the organophosphate and the amount of the exposure/ingestion, vertebrates can recover. How would the spongiform encephalopathy on autopsy be explained?

It is poured, full strength, right down the back of the cow to treat for the warble fly. Some suggest an interaction with manganese.

http://www.ithyroid.com/mn_and_mad_cow_disease.htm

Sorry, this was the best source for which I had time. Some of the proponents of this theory are reasonably credible. Interestingly, the Swiss owners of the organophosphate patents (Zeneca, IIRC) have supposedly sold off the patents to a shell corporation with minimal assets.

28 posted on 01/20/2005 8:52:18 PM PST by Carry_Okie (There are people in power who are truly evil.)
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To: Carry_Okie
Thanks for the link. I'm not satisfied with any of the explanations about prions. Your link was the first that I saw about "normal" prions. If prions are just misfolded proteins, what's their amino acid sequence and why do they induce misfolding in other proteins? Are the original proteins structural in nature or enzymes?

They need to do a lot more basic science in neurodegenerative disorders. Mice with knocked out genes have become the main model it seems. The author in this article seems to be the guy in the following abstract:

Prions: pathogenesis and reverse genetics.

29 posted on 01/20/2005 10:30:06 PM PST by neverdem (May you be in heaven a half hour before the devil knows that you're dead.)
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To: neverdem
Thanks for the link. I'm not satisfied with any of the explanations about prions.

Nor should you be. It just doesn't pass the sniff test that something so ubiquitous as these folded proteins should suddenly cause a new degenerative disease with such marked and significant symptoms never before documented in human history. Further, that it would be transmissible in the manner suggested doesn't strike me as quite right either.

OTOH, that organophosphate pesticides, some of which are known neurotoxins, might have delayed, second order combinatorial effects with background trace minerals is indeed possible and would certainly escape normal screening during product qualification.

30 posted on 01/20/2005 11:04:17 PM PST by Carry_Okie (There are people in power who are truly evil.)
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To: M. Espinola

..does cooking remove/kill this thing??


31 posted on 01/20/2005 11:14:30 PM PST by IGBT
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To: farmfriend

BTTT!!!!!!


32 posted on 01/21/2005 3:04:46 AM PST by E.G.C.
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To: IGBT; All

No, nothing kills the prions, that I know of.

Here is the million dollar question---is everyone suseptible to this? If not, just how much of the population is?


33 posted on 01/21/2005 7:03:27 AM PST by riri
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To: Carry_Okie

Very interesting.


Why, maybe, such a long incubation period?


34 posted on 01/21/2005 7:04:35 AM PST by riri
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To: IGBT

That is a good question. I do not know.


35 posted on 01/21/2005 7:20:10 AM PST by M. Espinola (Freedom is never free!)
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To: riri
Why, maybe, such a long incubation period?

I'm just speculating, but it would take time to accumulate the manganese.

36 posted on 01/21/2005 7:24:12 AM PST by Carry_Okie (There are people in power who are truly evil.)
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To: M. Espinola

Thursday, January 20, 2005 commentary:
USDA insider reveals the truth: mad cow disease is epidemic, USDA labs fraudulently cover up test results
This is one of the most important stories on mad cow disease to come out yet. If what this article says is true, it means the USDA is engaged in a massive coverup of mad cow disease. They accomplish this by using a bogus laboratory that routinely determines all cow brain samples to be "negative" for mad cow disease, even when they are positive. This lab, called the National Veterinary Services Laborities, is extremely secretive and has refused to release test results to veterinarians. The situation is so bad that veterinarians call the USDA's mad cow surveillance program, "a laughing matter."..........snipped

http://www.newstarget.com/000914.html


37 posted on 01/21/2005 1:30:35 PM PST by Vn_survivor_67-68
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To: Carry_Okie
I was perusing JAMA and noticed a reference to this article. Ferritin is the main protein involved in the storage of iron physiologically. Let me know if you don't care for medical abstracts, so I don't bother you with them.

Protease-Resistant Human Prion Protein and Ferritin Are Cotransported across Caco-2 Epithelial Cells: Implications for Species Barrier in Prion Uptake from the Intestine

38 posted on 01/21/2005 3:26:09 PM PST by neverdem (May you be in heaven a half hour before the devil knows that you're dead.)
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To: neverdem
Although I got the gist of that abstract, it was well over the edge of my full comprehension. It would seem that the findings indicate an implication, but not necessarily a full mechanism.

Insofar as flagging me on such goes, what interests me are the regulatory implications of such findings or how they affect producers and markets. Flag away; I can always bail if it doesn't interest me.

39 posted on 01/21/2005 4:36:13 PM PST by Carry_Okie (There are people in power who are truly evil.)
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