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New Test Spots Human Form of Mad Cow Disease With 100-Percent Accuracy (scientificamerican.com)
An anonymous reader writes from a report via Scientific American: Eating beef from an animal infected with mad cow disease can lead to an untreatable condition that attacks the brain and is universally fatal, but symptoms can take decades to emerge. Thankfully, Claudio Soto, a neurologist at McGovern Medical School at UTHealth in Houston, and her team, as well as a team led by Daisy Bougard of the French Blood Establishment in Montpellier, France, have developed new blood-screening technology that can spot Mad Cow Disease (known as variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease) with 100 percent accuracy -- perhaps years before it attacks. From the Scientific American: "Misfolded proteins called prions cause both mad cow and variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. Once they invade the brain, they begin recruiting normal proteins and forcing them to adopt the same abnormal shape. The prions and the blighted proteins clump together forming increasingly large aggregate deposits that wreak havoc on the brain and invariably lead to death. The disease, however, has a long incubation period. In the interim, the prions hang out in non-brain tissues such as the appendix and tonsils, and because they do not cause symptoms, the infected person becomes a silent carrier. [The two teams] ran the test on blood samples from variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease patients in the U.K. and France. The two teams used slightly different methods, but the basic idea was the same: the test essentially mimics the progression of the disease in an accelerated, artificial environment. First the prion proteins are separated from the blood and combined with normal proteins, which take on an abnormal shape, forming aggregate clumps. Then, the aggregates are pulled apart and recombined with more normal proteins. The process is repeated over and over again, in effect replicating the prion proteins until very small quantities are amplified enough to be easily detected. If there are no prions present in the blood, nothing happens. Between the two studies, the test was able to identify a total of 32 cases of variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease with 100% percent accuracy, and there were no false positives among the 391 controls, which included regular blood donors, patients with a different form of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, and patients with other neurological diseases. In addition, Bougard's group was able to diagnose variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in the blood of two patients 1.3 and 2.6 years before they developed clinical symptoms." The two studies -- "Detection of prions in blood from patients with variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease" and "Detection of prions in the plasma of presymptomatic and symptomatic patients with variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease" -- were published in the journal Science Translational Medicine.
Two cows begin talking about mad cow epidemic.
One says to the other how afraid he is of contracting the disease.
The other seems unconcerned.
The first cow becomes agitated at the indifference his friend is showing towards a threat which is affecting the whole cow community.
The second cow replies "I can understand why you are so upset, but why should I be concerned? I'm a helicopter".
Please consider a lifestyle not of eating animal but of compassion.
Most ppl. here are probably posting from a place that has three/four or five supermarkets within a 5 mile range of their residence.
That supermarket has aisles full of cruelty-free and healthy alternative foods that you can buy.
What is your excuse for eating meat, ***three*** times a day, at ***every** meal?
Please meditate on this question. If you live in the developed Western word, what is your excuse for consuming animals when all sort or cruelty-free alternatives exist?
I don't think you have any. That's just my AC opinion.
I have a feeling that many cannot remember the "mad cow crisis" in the 90s. Because after the crises var-CJD/MCD has not gotten much attention lately.
Background: .. like brain, eyes, bone, spinal matter, ..) which was then restricted.
The interesting thing was, that there was some evidence that MCD was being transmitted onto cows by feeding them carcass meal (pulverized dead leftovers from slaugther - everything not sold
There were secondary hints, that the initial prion mutation could be the effect of a chemical agent used some years before in agriculture.
Note: those prions could really multiply every generation through this kind of "recycling".
However that crises took shape in england where it was observed that a higher than usual incident rate of CJD in humans occured and a conclusion was finally drawn between MCD and vCJD. Hint: "piri piri"
Which finally lead to carcas meal ban in Summer 1996.
The UK was at the center of the outbreak with very high incident rates. Public was kept in the dark for some time.
Stastics:
Now the interesting fact is in [1] which tells us, that there was a peak in 1992 contrary to the ban of 1996 I cannot explain that drop, it could be that using brain and spine for carcas meal production was forbidden.
For a long time there was an import ban on bovine meat from UK in the EU.
Interstingly there was a test developed for live cattle[2],
which is not being used.
The "walking dead" moment:
Now the interesting point is that MCD-crisis is not really over, and this testing method explains that we might be infected by prions from cows with MCD, and even if a cow is not diagnosed with MCD - only cows older than 24 months are tested. A normal cow could carry those prions and we ingest those prions. However those cows never get diagnosed because not reaching the age where they'd show symptoms.
And yes the sad moment is "some might be infected"
the question who is infected?
Sometimes it is only good to know for others (blood donation recipients) but not for you ?!
Another conclusion can be drawn, that when having still cows with MCD it is likely that even now people get infected by MCD-prions, as of now.
[1] https://de.wikipedia.org/w/ind...
[2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p...
From what is known this cannot be correct.
1.) Because the test is a blood test, testing for prions present in the blood and multiplying them. Also do the prions accumulate in the tonsils and so on.
Meaning: you will ingest prions and they can/will accumulate in you.
2.) even by todays slaughtering standards, like separating the brain early out and sucking away the spinal mass. It cannot be excluded to contaminate the meat.
Because to get to the spinal mass you need to cut it open. Also is the carcass split into halves by a chainsaw,
does cut bones open to the marrow.
And many industrial slaugthering houses do not adhere fully to the standards, its a very rough business.
3.) the cases of vCJD in the UK cannot simply be explained to be only have been transmitted through brain tissue, because these people ate meat but perhaps they ate hamburger meat where you'd cannot really tell or taste if there was a brain among.
The tragedy is that in 1996 there where over a thousand excess deaths from salmonella as people switched from beef to other meats assuming that the choice was zero risk. So the scare back in 1996 resulted in roughly 1000 people losing their lives trying to avoid a disease that if they where going to get they where already infected as the really dangerous material for infection had already been removed from the food chain.
Please consider a lifestyle not of eating animal but of compassion.
I prefer to acknowledge that I am an omnivore and be grateful that I have high quality food to eat including sources of animal protein.
That supermarket has aisles full of cruelty-free and healthy alternative foods that you can buy.
Does it really? Was your produce picked by well paid and well treated people? Furthermore I dispute your attempt to frame the argument to imply that all animal protein comes from sources that were cruel to the animals. That is demonstrably not true in a non-trivial number of cases. Furthermore you and I might have very different ideas of what constitutes cruelty.
What is your excuse for eating meat, ***three*** times a day, at ***every** meal?
I don't. I might have a piece of meat once a day under normal circumstances, often once every 2-3 days. As for an excuse, I don't need one and don't apologize for eating animal protein if the mood strikes me. I'm an omnivore and I'm ok with that. I'm grateful to the animal that gave it's life so that mine may continue. I also raise chickens and consume the eggs which provides significant percentages of my protein needs. My making a choice to not eat meat will not improve the lives of a single animal. Not one. The meat will still be produced and sold even if I don't buy it. If you are concerned about how animals are treated then you need to look at the other end of the supply chain and work to improve regulations ensuring the humane treatment of animals.
OTOH, when I go fishing, I bleed my catch prior to taking it home to prepare as food. Based on testimony from people who have almost bled to death, this is one of the best ways to die - it feels like falling asleep.
Yeah except for that rather nasty knife cut that hurts like hell. And the hook. And the oxygen hunger from being yanked out of the water. Other than that it's just peaches and rainbows.
Seriously, it's ok to fish and I have no problem with that. Just don't think I'm deluded enough to think that fishing is some sort of comfortable death for the fish. It isn't. It's approximately as nasty as being caught by any other predator. Maybe gentler than an immediate evisceration but not by much.
your actions almost always lead to animals suffering a natural death by predation,
That does not apply to domesticated livestock in most cases. You are correct but kind of talking apples and oranges.
my actions lead to them suffering the most painless death possible, my way actually results in less cruelty than yours.
Baloney. If you shop at a supermarket that is not true by definition. I don't actually have a problem with consumption of meat but pretending that the animals who were slaughtered to bring you your meal were treated kindly. Sometimes they were but often they weren't. Industrial scale meat production isn't easy to reconcile with humane treatment of animals. A sad but true fact.
But everything has consequences - both action and inaction.
Quite right. I agree with your general thesis, just not some of the parts of the argument. I think your conclusion is correct but your path to get there needs a more robust set of supporting arguments.