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."

Comments

Donation

[seti]

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.

Re:Donation

[seti]

I totally agree. It's been twenty-five years since I have lived in the UK, and I'm not expert on VCJD, but if i haven't developed any illness by now, I don't think I ever will. Also, VJCD has occurred a couple of times here, so it's a bit of a stupid rule.

The UK however has had a lot more cases than other European countries. Other countries have been France, Belgium and the Netherlands, but to a lot lesser extent than the UK (probably about 90% of cases).

Re:Donation

[packeteer]

I don't want to scare you since you are probably fine but you very well could have prions in you. Temember there is no way to test and just becuase you have no symptoms doesn;t mean you dont have it. You can be exposed to the prions that cause VCJD and not get sick for 30-40 years.

I know someone who is not allowed to donate blood in the USA. He has never been to europe. His grandfather died of CJD and contracted it in the United States. Becuase there is a possability he carried it when he has children and his grandchildren COULD have it. There is no way to test them. The only way they will know is when they get older they could get sick.

Re:Donation

[Hannah E. Davis]

There's a similar law in Canada. From the Canadian Blood Services websites:

Possible Exposure to CJD or vCJD: People are not eligible to donate blood or plasma if they have spent a cumulative total of three months or more in the United Kingdom (U.K.) between January 1980, and December 31, 1996, or if they have spent a cumulative total of three months or more in France between January 1980, and December 31, 1996, or if they have spent a cumulative total of five years or more in Western Europe outside the U.K. or France since 1980. In addition, people will no longer be eligible to donate blood or plasma if they have had a blood transfusion in the U.K., France or Western Europe since 1980. This is owing to the risk of transmission of variant Creutzfeldt Jakob Disease (vCJD) through blood.

I'm a first generation Canadian of British descent, so when I was younger, my parents took me to Britain many times to visit relatives -- I suspect that I've been there for at least 3 months in total, so I guess I'm banned from donating blood too.

Re:Donation

[Graham Clark]

This depends on your definition of "many". Compared to the number who've died from HIV or hepatitis, it's fairly trivial. The reason for the ban, AFAICT, was that a few years ago there was less evidence about how many people were eventually likely to be infected, so it was much more plausible that it was a significant threat. It was an act of caution, which of course is a good thing.

Given the trend since, the British blood supply still looks immensely safe.

Re:Donation

[hattig]

Amazing, the problem only arose in the UK in the mid-80s as well due to the Conservative government allowing their farmer friends to cut costs by feeding animal waste to bovines.

It isn't as if BSE is UK only, there are plenty of cases throughout Europe and the US as well - not on the same scale as the problem *was* over here, then again you didn't have pure evil corruption in government at the time. As an aside, I notice that BSE is occuring more often in the US these days ...

Re:Donation

[FidelCatsro]

http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs180/en /
About 132 deaths over a 6 year period(not all are definite) , you have a far greater chance of the beef itself killing you by being stuck in your throat, slipping on a bit you spilled on the floor ,contracting nasty food poisoning or a bowel obstruction

Re:Donation

[Tim C]

"Probably"? Every time I see that, I read it as "I don't actually know, but my prejudice is that...".

So, here are some actual numbers, courtesy of the World Health Organisation. As it turns out, you underestimated it, at least for the period in the report.

Still, it's worth pointing out that the UK population is in the region of 60million or so, so the number of cases is tiny.

Re:Donation

[wbtittle]

Sorry, you fail.

Pop quiz buddy. You are about to die. You need blood. You have a choice. DIE, or take the blood of a person who might, maybe, possibly, if 7,000,000,000 things went just right have a stray prion in his system, which might just might transfer to you and then 25 years from now cause you to die of nvCJD.

What do you choose. Death today, or death 25 years from now.

The policy is stupid. It kills people. The blood supply is severely strained as a result.

The definition of a rare blood type is not AB-, it is the type of blood you need when you need it and it is not there.

Less than 200 people have died of nvCJD in the world in the last 30 years.

Anyone worried about catching it and dying may as well shoot themselves right now, cause they are also worried to death about getting every other disease on the planet except for the ones that might actually kill them (like the flu).

GRRRR

Alternative test

[Boomshanka]

will it determine if the woman I am about to marry will turn into a mad cow down the track.... now that would truely be a useful test.

Mad Cow Test on the Horizon?

[Anonymous Coward]

If she stops talking to you and refuses to say what's wrong... that's a pretty good indicator.

To be fair

[MillionthMonkey]

Prions can also be spread via cannibalism- although cannibals can rest assured that as far as prions are concerned, eating brains is still much, much safer than receiving transfusions.

Re:To be fair

[ookabooka]

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?

Re:To be fair

[juan2074]

And, oddly enough, there is no talk of banning animal parts in feed.

Instead, we will just test for the disease, hoping to eliminate diseased cattle from the food supply.

Why try an ounce of prevention when we can spend more on the pound of cure?

Blood test since 2003

[polysylabic psudonym]

According to New Scientist magazine there's been a blood test for BSE (Bovive Spongiform Encephalopathy(Mad Cow Disease)) since 2003. The more tests out there the better, of course. Better tests mean quicker testing, means more US cattle tested, means fewer cases hiding, means fewer cases of vCJD in american humans.

Re:Blood test since 2003

[A beautiful mind]

It may seem to be nitpicking, but all humans belong to only one species, therefore i would guess it would benefit the whole human race, not just only the humans living in America.

If it was just an unfortunate phrase, then i'm sorry that i'm still talking about it, i just wanted to make sure it gets corrected.

heard this on the TV a while ago...

[IchBinEinPenguin]

cow1: Do you worry about mad cow disease?
cow2: Why should I? I'm a rabbit.

Re:canadian cows maybe great but ....

[Hannah E. Davis]

I suspect that the scientists wouldn't have used hamsters (or any lab animals) if they didn't have to, at least in part because procuring and maintaining lab animals ain't cheap and requires a fair bit of paper work. We don't really understand much about prions (well, we know what they are and what they can do, but we have no idea -why- they're like that, or how they work), so this makes it very difficult to just model a simulation or fiddle around with some tissue culture. This makes some animal testing necessary, unfortunately, and the best the scientists can do is try to be humane and hope that their research will be used to save human and animal lives.

Incidentally, I'm a former biology major, and one reason why I switched to computer science during second year was that I couldn't handle hurting animals, let alone taking them apart and poking at their squishy bits. I don't like using lab animals any more than you do, but I think it would do more harm than good if we just outlawed the practice.

I hope they don't expect a lot more donors

[wizrd_nml]

in the US, 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.

So with over 80% of Americans not even having a passport, is that really a problem?

Re:I hope they don't expect a lot more donors

[Babbster]

In situations like this, it's less a question of getting more donors and more a question of not alienating people who are willing to donate blood. Not only do you lose that person from the donor pool but, if they feel slighted by the criteria, they can discourage others from coming in.

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).

Re:I hope they don't expect a lot more donors

[Randseed]

I stopped donating blood a while back. Now I'm in the medical field, so I understand how important it is to donate and all that. The problem with our current blood donation system in terms of "donator service" is twofold. First, they ask an incredibly annoying battery of questions for high risk screening, which turns a lot of people off. (I don't care about that personally.) But second, they reject people for some of the most ridiculous reasons which makes me not even bother. An example of the latter is rejecting someone who took Tylenol for a headache, someone who is on a relatively benign psych drug chronically (e.g., Prozac), etc.

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.

Re:I hope they don't expect a lot more donors

[Mccavity91k]

We do not reject people that have taken Tylenol, unless they're donating platelets (Tylenol, like asprin, is a blood thinner). As far as the drugs go, it is on a case by case basis because some drugs change your blood in many ways. As far as the Benadryl goes, the place I worked at would not have deferred you for that, as long as the allergies were chronic, and not possible a cold or flu.

Remember, this blood will go to sick or injured people that aren't in the right shape to have to worry about what drugs or viruses are in their bloodstreams, and how they'll react with what they're already on.

Re:I hope they don't expect a lot more donors

[Mccavity91k]

There actually is a choice for that. If somebody doesn't want to admit something, or if, say they came in a group and don't want to have to explain why they couldn't donate, we have barcode stickers that we make them choose from. One states they believe their blood is safe for transfusion, one states that for some reason, they don't believe so. We don't even know which ones they choose until we bring the blood back to the lab and scan them. If they say no transfusion, we destroy them, and nobody's the wiser.

Re:I hope they don't expect a lot more donors

[jd0g85]

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?

cost and time

[silverkniveshotmail.]

i didn't notice the article mention once how long it would take to get results, or how much it would cost.

There is also another test...

[CrackedButter]

It involves taking a swab sample from the tonsils, its been news to me for at least 4 or 5 years. At the time the only other test was to take a cross section of the brain test that, of course, you're only capable of doing that from somebody who had already died of the disease.

Mad Cow and CFD is a hype - it is safe.

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Mad Cow and CFD is a hype - it is safe.

[Grym]

"The facts are..."

"+1 interesting" as it may be, from that point on the parent was utterly wrong.

Some definitions: TSE is the general name of the TYPE of disease. Bovine Spongiform Encephalitis (BSE), or "Mad Cow's Disease", is the specific name of the disease as it appears in bovine, or cows. Creutzfeldt-Jakob (CJD) disease is the specific name of the disease at it appears in people.

Some common points of confusion:

• There are multiple forms of CJD, dependent upon how it is contracted
• cCJD, or Classical CJD is a genetic form
• In cCJD, YOUR BODY produces the malfolded protein (prion) which causes the disease. This is rare and ONLY manifests itself in the elderly (>55). It is a rare genetic defect (about 1:1 million) that causes this.
• nCJD (or sometimes nvCJD) is the acquired form of the disease. It can be acquired from contact with any infected bodily fluid and, of course, meat. It can affect anyone of any age.
• A person can get nCJD by contact with a cow with BSE OR a person with cCJD. This is why they aren't allowing blood transfusions of possibly infected people.
• All people are susceptible to the disease. It's simply a matter of contracting the disease. This is difficult to do if you: 1. Don't practice cannibalism (prevent contact to CJD) 2. Slaughter cows without coming into contact with the brain or spine (prevent contact to BSE) and 3. Prevent contact with an infected patient's spinal fluid (this really only applies to healthcare professionals, but it's fundamentally no different from #1)

-Grym

Re:Mad Cow and CFD is a hype - it is safe.

[insert cool name]

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 hope this is true, but the figures from the CJD observation unit don't back it up. http://www.cjd.ed.ac.uk/figures.htm

Since 1990 the number of deaths from definite or probable vCJD is 150.

This is for the UK only (not the whole of Europe), is a figure for deaths rather than just cases and for a period of much less than 50 years. The figure does include deaths that are not confirmed to be new variant CJD, but I assume this means they may be from a different CJD varient rather than something else totally unrelated. The number of definitely confirmed deaths is 107.

Tough work

[pedestrian crossing]

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.

Banned

[dcw3]

I'm an American who lived in Europe for six years. From the time I returned to the US, until the ban was enacted, I was able to donate blood on a regular basis. I was surprised, when I was filling out the standard donation questioneer, to find that they had changed the rules, and I was suddenly unable to donate. Does this really make any sense at all? Are Europeans not donating blood? Has there been a single documented case of someone contracting Mad Cow through a blood donation? If so, are the risks of getting it worse than those of not having an adequate blood supply?

Re:Banned

[Spad]

The chance of somebody contracting CJD from a blood transfusion donated by someone who'd visited the UK for 6 months is essentially negligible, but it only takes one case for the media to turn it into a circus and blame the government for not protecting people.

Re:Banned

[DrMindWarp]

Has there been a single documented case of someone contracting Mad Cow through a blood donation?

The answer is very probably. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4699349.stm

Re:Banned

[Mccavity91k]

Speaking as both a previous blood donor center technician and as a medical laboratory tech, which includes transfusion services (not to mention the fact that I'm an American currently living in Europe, and can't donate either), the person that made this article is using older limitations. The current limitations (for vCJD) are: lived in Europe for > 6 months between 1980 and 1995, or lived in Europe for greater than 5 years from 1980 until the current year (these are the limitations for the Armed Services Blood Bank, and it may be different from other blood bank associations).

The reason these limitations exist is because of how little is known about vCJD (Variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease). The bit about prions is still debated, although it is the widely accepted theory.

There is no case of vCJD that has been caught from a blood transfusion, although there have been cases from cornea or dura mater transplants or the administration of human-derived pituitary growth hormones (this from WHO).

There is also some question about the possibility of transmission from people who have had beef insulin (from before we could grow human insulin in sterile conditions). Any of these items automatically mean an indefinite deferral until there is a test available for vCJD that can be performed easily (i.e. not in a big research lab by post-doctorates), like the EIA or PCR tests that exist for HIV, Hepatitis C virus, or Cytomegalovirus.

The blood donation community as a whole got really burnt, first when HIV came out, then when Hepatitis C virus was discovered (a close family member of mine caught HCV from a blood transfusion years ago). So, the FDA, which governs blood donations, (blood, since it is transfused, is considered to be a drug by the FDA, and is held to all the same standards as any pharmaceutical company) is incredibly jumpy about any disease which exists or can exist in the blood getting transfused, and contributing to an epidemic amongst people that are already unhealthy (you don't get blood transfused unless something's wrong, right?).

You should have seen how quickly they clamped down on SARS. We had to start asking all potential donors if they had SARS or SARS-like symptoms, and if in the last 14 days, they had travelled to any SARS endemic countries, and we still do.

Europeans are donating blood, just not in America. Those countries make their own laws, and, since it's considered endemic, as well as very rare, they ask certain questions to find risky history, but do not defer for vCJD based on location to the best of my knowledge. The FDA has chosen to do so to prevent the spread from Europe to America.

As far as the risks, vCJD is a fatal disease with no cure, no matter how you slice it, just like HIV/AIDS or Hepatitis C. To ask the question like that is to ask if it's worth the risk to have Chronic Hepatitis C in 10 years in exchange for a blood transfusion when you need it. Some people that have caught it from a transfusion say it was worth having their life saved, and some say they would rather have bled to death. Personally, I'd rather err on the side of caution, and use what blood we have, instead of making that decision for another person.

VCJD in the US

[jcaren]

Of course, we all know that this disease does
not occur within the states, mainly because
it is a federal offence to even mention the
possiblity of it :-)

I ask you what is safer, wipe out the disease
or discussion (and therefore action).

Jacqui

eat steak eat steak

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Donation Bans: Poster is Wrong

[Kevin Nichols]

The poster is wrong in stating that anyone who has lived 6 months or more in Europe cannot give blood. It's not actually that strict. The full details are here: RC Donor Eligibility.

Re:Donation Bans: Poster is Wrong

[oneiros27]

It used to be. They've relaxed it recently. (I know, because I was trying to figure out why there was the ban, as I'm in the group banned, and freaked me out even more when the relaxed the rules, but I was still in the banned group.)

Here's the notice they've been sending out whenever we have a blood drive at work:

Effective March 1, 2005, the American Red Cross has significantly changed the restrictions for deferral of donors who have traveled to various parts of the world. Previously, the restrictions were 3 months total from 1980 to 1996 in the UK and 6 months total for the UK and Europe.

Now, the criteria is as follows for deferral:

Since January 1, 1980 through December 31, 1996-

• Spent a total time that adds up to 3 months or more in any country in the United Kingdom.
• Were a member of the U.S. military, a civilian military employee, or a dependent of a member of the US Military that spent a total of 6 months on or associated with a military base in any of the following areas during the specified time frames-
  • From 1980 through 1990-Belgium, the Netherlands (Holland), or Germany
  • From 1980 thorough 1996-Spain, Portugal, Turkey, Italy or Greece

Since January 1, 1980 to present-

Spent a total time that adds up to 5 years or more in Europe (includes time spent n the UK from 1980 through 1996 and time associated with the military bases in Europe as outlined above)

The rest of the deferral requirements remain the same.

From the research I did, there were suggestions that military folks were likely to visit the UK -- I couldn't find anything that suggested that have reason to believe that there was tainted meat on the bases.

Oh my, yes

[payndz]

Until now, the only way to positively ID those infected was to dissect the brain.

Am I the only one who imagined Professor Farnsworth saying that, with a degree of relish?

Actually...

[Torfbolt]

I thought everybody already knew THE Mad Cow Test
http://www.cybersalt.org/cleanlaugh/madcow.htm

Re:canadian cows maybe great but ....

[moro_666]

i guess you see my point, but i dont think most people do.

ofcourse most of us dont give much thought about the rats/mice/hamsters used in the tests, and sometimes the sacrificing is just necessary to save the healthy animals/humans that have survived so far.

but i for example have a cat at home, i'd rather infect the biologist that wants to experiment himself than my kitten, no matter the purpose.

i guess most people with pets couldn't even think about giving their cats/dogs/birds for some animal testings now would you.

humans are the product of evolution, the choice of nature. why are we so eager to choose by ourselves who survives next instead of letting the nature evolve new better and more resistant lifeforms ?

i guess we're just scared as hell, that over the last few decades our kind has been weakened so much that we would lose the battle. (here comes the planet of the apes ...)

No tech needed...

[mrch0mp3rs]

If you tip a cow, and it gets up and charges you.. chances are it's mad.
</dumb joke>

Mad Cow Test

[NotFamous]

Sample questions from the "Are you a Mad Cow?" test:

1. Do you often feel your section of the pasture has a higher percentage of weeds
2. Do you have frequent dreams related to tipping? Do you land?
3. Do you often have difficulty "showing affection" in the stall?
4. Do you read Slashcow?

Amazing

[WindBourne]

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.

a different Mad Cow theory

[nido]

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.