Two deaths in Spain linked to mad cow disease

[lonestarnot]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080407/hl_afp/healthspainmadcow_080407223854

Two deaths in Spain linked to mad cow disease: authorities Mon Apr 7, 6:38 PM ET



MADRID (AFP) - Two people have died in central Spain in the past three months after contracting the human form of mad cow disease in the first such fatalities in the country since 2005, the health ministry said Monday.



The two victims apparently contracted the brain-wasting disease before Spain and the European Union tightened controls on meat production in the mid-1990s following the appearance of the illness, the ministry said in a statement.

"These cases have no epidemiological consequences, that is to say, they do not put citizens' health at risk," the statement said.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mad_Cow_Disease

" ...Possibly due to pressure from large agribusiness, the United States has drastically cut back on the number of cows inspected for BSE."

"...the CDC has refused to impose a national requirement that physicians and hospitals report cases of the disease. Instead, the agency relies on other methods, including death certificates and urging physicians to send suspicious cases to the National Prion Disease Pathology Surveillance Center (NPDPSC) at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, which is funded by the CDC."

[Iwasthere]

1. Only a matter of time before we see cases grow here in our country

This 'brain wasting' disease lays dormant for years. There is no cure and it is apparently a horrific death. And still inspections in the industry are quite lacking. Makes me sick !!!

[lonestarnot]

15. 4 years according to wiki and that is in cattle.

[katsy]

2. Question about this statement:

"These cases have no epidemiological consequences, that is to say, they do not put citizens' health at risk," the statement said."

There is no person-to-person infection for BSE. That's a given. However, what if the victims donated blood to a blood bank subsequent to being infected with BSE? Can BSE be spread to an otherwise healthy recipient of infected blood?

[FourScore]

3. Anyone who lived in Europe during the mad-cow epidemic

is not allowed to donate.

[katsy]

7. Thank you.

:hi:

[FourScore]

12. Gladly. It was an excellent question.

The only reason I know this little tidbit is because I lived in Europe then. Luckily, I was a vegan, but I'm still not allowed to donate blood. I think it is a smart precaution.

:hi:

[livetohike]

4. My husband can never donate blood again because his

maternal Aunt passed away from CJD in 1994.

[katsy]

8. Which begs my next question:

What has the US done to prevent infected blood-to-recipient here?

[livetohike]

9. Good question

:-(

[Horse with no Name]

11. Nothing.

In fact, there was an inspector who had some downed cows inspected a couple of years ago. The Bush croney Johanns chastised and punished that inspector for "unauthorized" testing. It did turn out that these cows were positive.

Read this and weep:
http://www.prwatch.org/node/6108
The Associated Press notes that the Bush administration "will fight to keep meatpackers from testing all their animals for mad cow disease. The Agriculture Department tests fewer than 1 percent of slaughtered cows for the disease, which can be fatal to humans who eat tainted beef. A beef producer in the western state of Kansas, Creekstone Farms Premium Beef, wants to test all of its cows," but the US government has said such private testing is illegal. "U.S. District Judge James Robertson noted that Creekstone sought to use the same test the government relies on and said the government didn't have the authority to restrict it. The ruling was scheduled to take effect June 1, but the Agriculture Department said Tuesday it would appeal, effectively delaying the testing until the court challenge has played out." Way back in 1997, the book Mad Cow USA by Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber exposed the US government's failure to protect cattle and people against this bizarre and always fatal brain disease, including the failure to adequately test US cattle. One decade later the US cover-up continues.

[katsy]

13. Why am I not surprised.

Thanks.

[lonestarnot]

17. I remember this.

[lonestarnot]

16. Silenced the reporting. CDC apparently isn't interested if wiki is correct.

[lonestarnot]

14. I am not an expert, but that makes sense in that prions are

"misfolded protiens."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prion

Prion
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A prion (IPA: /ˈpriːɒn/<1>listen (help·info)) — short for proteinaceous infectious particle (-on by analogy to virion) — is a poorly-understood hypothetical infectious agent that, according to the "protein only" hypothesis, is composed entirely of proteins.<2> Prions are thought to cause a number of diseases in a variety of mammals, including bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE, also known as "mad cow disease") in cattle and the Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) in humans. All thus-far hypothesized prion diseases affect the structure of the brain or other neural tissue, and all are currently untreatable and thought to be fatal.<3> In general usage, prion can refer to both the theoretical unit of infection or the specific protein (e.g. PrP) that is thought to be the infective agent, whether or not it is in an infective state.

Prions are hypothesized to infect and propagate by refolding abnormally into a structure which is able to convert normal molecules of the protein into the abnormally structured form. All known prions induce the formation of an amyloid fold, in which the protein polymerises into an aggregate consisting of tightly packed beta sheets. This altered structure is extremely stable and accumulates in infected tissue, causing cell death and tissue damage.<4> This stability means that prions are resistant to denaturation by chemical and physical agents, making disposal and containment of these particles difficult.

Proteins showing prion-type behavior are also found in some fungi and this has been quite important in helping to understand mammalian prions. However, fungal prions do not appear to cause disease in their hosts and may even confer an evolutionary advantage through a form of protein-based inheritance.<5>

[magellan]

5. The paradox: I'll never again be able to donate blood here

...because I lived in the UK from the mid-90s, but the US gov't is fine with lax BSE inspections.

:wtf:

[Coexist]

6. kick

[ensho]

10. kick

nt

[lonestarnot]

18. kick