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Creating Prion-Free Cows

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the un-mad-cows dept.

Science Daily is reporting that the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Agricultural Research Service (ARS) is reporting positive results from a recent study designed to create genetically engineered prion-free cattle. From the article: "ARS studied eight Holstein males that were developed by Hematech Inc., a pharmaceutical research company based in Sioux Falls, S.D. The evaluation of the prion-free cattle was led by veterinary medical officer Juergen Richt of ARS' National Animal Disease Center (NADC) in Ames, Iowa. The evaluation revealed no apparent developmental abnormalities in the prion-free cattle."

14 of 340 comments (clear)

  1. Dead sheeps by Per+Abrahamsen · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This is great! Now we can go back to feeding the cows a healthy diet of dead sheep, which was how the whole "mad cow" thing started.

    1. Re:Dead sheeps by WindBourne · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Actually, that is not proven. It it THOGUGHT that scrapies is the same as Madcow ( and MC CWD CJD), but they are not certain. But even with that, I want to know how accurate is the test these days? It is great that they did not have any positive in what was suppose to be negative cattle. But will they get a good positive in an infected animal?

      --
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    2. Re:Dead sheeps by AndroidCat · · Score: 4, Funny

      Why yes, they should have been feeding live sheep to cows...

      --
      One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
  2. That is one solution... by abscissa · · Score: 4, Insightful

    ... or you could just not feed them parts of their dead relatives?

    1. Re:That is one solution... by Oswald · · Score: 4, Insightful
      Isn't it encouraging to know that, while your solution works in theory, it's not good enough in practice because you can't trust people not to do that.

      Doesn't seem that hard, really, but people are pretty stupid.

    2. Re:That is one solution... by Miksu77 · · Score: 5, Informative

      Or you could take the road us Finns have taken: Nowadays each and every cow that dies here is tested and not a single piece of a particular animal may be used to produce food unless that animal has been tested.

    3. Re:That is one solution... by RexRhino · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Yes, but the Finns have a government that serves the people.

      Given the fact that Finns pay (on average) 22% more for food than the EU average ( http://www.hs.fi/english/article/Food+still+expens ive+in+Finland+by+European+standards/1076153030941 ), and given the fact that 'Mad Cow' disease is so astronomically unlikely to infect anyone when absolutly no precautions are being taken, any reasonable person has to question the cost/value of food paranoia.

      I would say Finns requiring test for Mad Cow to be more about protectionism (it is against trade rules to outright ban foriegn beef, but if you require very specific and expensive testing on beef that isn't harmonized with other countries, and then subsidize the testing for domestic producers, you can essentially sidestep trade rules).

  3. Re:http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=& by wantobe · · Score: 4, Funny

    Oh, that was "prion"? I was trying to figure out how cows were getting "pron", and why we'd want to take it away from them anyway.

  4. Abnormal prions cause BSE by Timesprout · · Score: 4, Funny

    or Mad Cow Disease for those of you like myself who had no idea what the headline was about.

    The actual article headline "Mad Cow Breakthrough?" really should have been followed by a story about mad cow scientists were developing a doomsday weapon to destroy humanity, or that mad cow armies were breaking through our outer defense perimeter or some such. Would have been much more interesting.

    --
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    What truth?
    There is no dupe
  5. What about the positive effects of the prions? by tade · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Wikipedia article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prion mentions this article http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=p ubmed&cmd=Retrieve&dopt=AbstractPlus&list_uids=159 31169&query_hl=6&itool=pubmed_DocSum that mentions the prions in relation with long term memory. I wonder how well they tested the cows without the prions. (Abstract below)

    Changes in protein conformation drive most biological processes, but none have seized the imagination of scientists and the public alike as have the self-replicating conformations of prions. Prions transmit lethal neurodegenerative diseases by means of the food chain. However, self-replicating protein conformations can also constitute molecular memories that transmit genetic information. Here, we showcase definitive evidence for the prion hypothesis and discuss examples in which prion-encoded heritable information has been harnessed during evolution to confer selective advantages. We then describe situations in which prion-enciphered events might have essential roles in long-term memory formation, transcriptional memory and genome-wide expression patterns.
  6. Or dead people by giafly · · Score: 4, Interesting

    In 2005 a controversial paper in The Lancet introduced a theory that BSE might have originated in British cattle when they ate imported animal feed that included infected human remains from Hindu funeral ceremonies in India.
    Bovine spongiform encephalopathy

    This theory has some merit because scrapie from sheep does not appear to infect people, whereas BSE from cattle does.

    --
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  7. Soylent Green... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    ...is tasty!

    In all seriousness, you make a good point. BSE was first spotted among the cannibals of Papua New Guinea (where eating of the dead was a sign of respect).

    http://www.gwinnettdailyonline.com/GDP/archive/art icleEEF238D9C90E4B2989F5E473D3145A16.asp

    Here are a ton of articles on BSE & vCJD:

    http://www.newscientist.com/channel/health/bse

  8. Re:A better idea by elrous0 · · Score: 4, Funny
    I think vegetarians just coast on smug fumes for that last 10%-15%.

    -Eric

    --
    SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
  9. Re:Not quite the same disease by dosquatch · · Score: 4, Funny

    BSE and CJD are very similar (same mechanism) but not exactly the sane disease Best.
    Typo.
    Evar.
    --
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