Slashdot Mirror
New Mad Cow Test on the Horizon?
pin_gween writes "Prions are thought to be responsible for mad cow disease and its human variant, Creutzfeld-Jakob disease. Until now, the only way to positively ID those infected was to dissect the brain. Canada.com has an AP wire reporting that researchers at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston have 'developed a method of multiplying the number prions in a blood sample so a blood test then can detect them.' If perfected, it would make the blood supply safer; transfusions can spread the disease between people. It could also open up more blood donations for the Red Cross: in the U.S., people who have spent more than 3 months total (since 1980) in the UK or 6 months total (since 1980) in Europe are banned from donating."
In Belgium, I am banned from donating blood because i was born in 1978, and lived in the UK till 1980. I left the UK when I was two years old.
Coca-Cola, sometimes War.
The entire mad cow disiease and Creutzfeld-Jakobs Disease is a political hype created by over-zealous politicians.
Read one of the last chapters in the Matt Ridley book "Genome - the mapping of a species".
The facts are
1) To be able to get CFD, you need to have a genetic defect, making you suspectible to prions. If you don't have that genetic defect, you can eat 100 fresh non-cooked brains of mad cows and never get CFD.
2) The risk of getting struck by the disease, if you have the genetic defect, is something close to 1 in a million, supposing you eat raw brains or marrow from a mad cow. Processed meat has an even less likelyhood.
The fact that mad cow disease (and scrapie in sheep) does affect a lot of animals is due to inbreeding, that has caused most of the European cow and sheep population to have the genetic defect in question.
Given the odds, you can expect perhaps 10-20 cases of CFD in Europe in the next 50 years, unless the victims dies in a car accident beforehand, which is much more likely.
I have a friend who worked in a lab that was trying to develop a test for MCD, and my hat goes off to the people who do this kind of work.
Since so little is known about the exact infection process, known infected brain samples have to be handled -very- carefully. Working in a high-level biohazard environment is not easy, and is very stressful.
A house divided against itself cannot stand.
I worked at the Red Cross for a number of years and by far the least pleasant duty I had to perform was explaining to perfectly healthy people, whose blood was also probably perfectly healthy, that they couldn't donate because they happened to be in a group we had to consider "high risk." These reasons could be anything from having certain types of cancer (despite the fact that, AFAIK, nobody has gotten cancer from a blood transfusion) to a relative with CJD to a trip to the "wrong" country (various parasitic infections, high HIV infection rates, etc.). It's tough to tell somebody "no thanks" when they're trying to give of themselves (literally).
I thought that stomach enzymes broke down prions(and other protiens) and also in the small intestine. I suppose one rouge molecule that didnt react would get through to your bloodstream and start replicating?
If you are about to mod me down, keep in mind that this post was most likely sarcastic.
I saw this on the news today at the end of their headlines, they then switched to a commercial without flashing a logo or any pause. The commercial started with a little song "eat steak, eat steak..."
Not sure if that was intentional or not but it was a bit disturbing.
It's pretty random when you get down to the second. Some places have some sense when dealing with it. Some places go off the deep end, like rejecting me because I took Benadryl for alergies.
The answer is very probably. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4699349.stm
My daughter tripped while playing in a neighbor's backyard and fell against a fence which had 4 inch rusty nails protruding. The nail penetrated several inches into her thigh. I rushed her to the hospital. You need to know that this was in Canada during a time period when tens of thousands of Canadian's were given unsafe blood transfusions - that is, blood loaded with HIV particles. The Red Cross in Canada lied about heat treating the blood to destroy the HIV particles - and a special commission then banned the Red Cross from handling the blood supply in Canada - and just recently the Red Cross fined for lying at that time. While at the hospital - my family doctor and a dozen other doctors began to debate with me - trying to convince me - that I should allow gamma globulin shots - to ward off the possibilty of tetanus. All doctors kept telling me that the gamma globulin injections were completely safe. After several hours of debating - I was finally pressured into allowing the gamma globulin shots. Several months later I found out that in fact the blood used to make gamma globulin has not been heat treated - even though the doctors swore that it was!! So it ain't necessarily so - that because a better test is available - that the blood supply will be any safer. Those people in white coats more often than not make bad decisions - make bad judgements - when it comes to our well being.
As a regular donor, I concur with this. It is extremely frustrating to be turned away (temporarily) for some of the most absurd reasons, especially if it's after they've already poked your finger.
My favorite reason was that I went to Nayarita, a state in Mexico with a "malaria risk." The fun part is, I was only 5 miles across the border into the region (from Jalisco, which is "safe") and I stayed on the beach and out of the jungle. As a result, I could not give blood. (This is despite the fact that I had been back in the states for 10 months without any of the symptoms and that the typical incubation period for malaria is 7-30 days. This is also despite the fact that 5 months earlier I had already successfully donated under an earlier set of rules.)
Do mosquitos carrying malaria really follow the geopolitical boundaries imposed by human governments?
There is no belief, however foolish, that will not gather its faithful adherents who will defend it to the death.-Asimov
Back in 1980-81 (yes, 1980), I was working at CDC with Reagan speaking against Herpes as being the big killer. At the time, we were looking at a new something sweeping through the gay community. Of course, CDC went to reagan as soon as he became president to ask for money (prevention, not cure). It was turned down. One of the underlieing assumptions that reagan operated under was that it would spread in the gay community (none from CDC said that, but ppl in the reagan admin did). In addition, it was assumed that it would only strike a very small percentage of the population. What amazed me was the sheer number of people who were certain of that "fact" in 1982 (oh yes, this was long before the public understood). By the time that 1985 came around, it was sheer panic in america as the number of idiots who claimed that AIDs was nothing, were swept away by the sheer number of infections.
I also remember being introduced to the concept of prions. The concept was brand new in 198[12]. Now, I see ppl such as yourself and UPAAntilles who downplayed this, with little to no information. This disease is a large unknown. It is not really known underwhat circumstances you can pick it up. I suspect that by the time we really understand it, we will already have a very high infection rate.
The interesting thing about bugs, is that everybody fears things like ebola. Yet, it moves so fast, that it really is easy to contain. HIV is slow start-up, so was harder to catch and contain (are they infected or not?). Now, we have a bug? that takes years to show an infection. It may be 30 years before we find out that eating that beef from texas (were 3 cases of MCD were from), has infected 10 million americans. Or maybe the elk/deer/antelope from Colorado will infect the cattle in colorado (is there a difference between CWD and MCD? So far, we do not know) which will then infect.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
I think Mark Purdey, a British Organic Beef farmer who's never had a mad cow, has a much more plausible & comprehensive theory concerning the development of Mad Cows.
Executive summary:
In the early-80's, there was a warble fly epidemic in the british cow fleet. Warble flys punch holes in cow hides, making them unsuitable for high-quality leather products. In their infinite wisdom, the british government decided that all british cows needed to be treated with a pesticide that kills warble flies.
The pesticide was a synthetic organo-phosphate (an oily concoction), that was applied along the spine of the cow. Not only did it kill warble flies, it also chelated (removed) copper from the cow's system.
Then in 1986, chernobyl went off, blanketing the countryside with radioactive isotopes. Copper-deficient cows picked up some of these radioactive minerals to replace the copper they'd lost to the pesticide.
There's also something about manganese (commonly used in textile manufacturing) substituting for copper.
As an organic farmer, Mark Purdey had no intention of using a synthetic pesticide on his cows. So he sued, and was allowed an exemption to using this pesticide. He's never had a mad cow, not even amoung his cows who are reformed carnivores, so he must be doing something right.
Much more information on his website.
Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.
www.teslabox.com