# No current CWD test is 100%



## Ed Gehrman (Aug 20, 2002)

No deer test 100 percent 
Top animal doctor says eat at your own risk 

By Anita Weier
May 31, 2002


No current test for chronic wasting disease can guarantee that venison is safe to eat, according to the head of pathology at the National Veterinary Services Laboratories in Ames, Iowa. 

So hunters expecting to have their deer tested and approved for their tables this fall should forget it. 

"Most of you will be angry with me," Dr. Mark Hall told people gathered at the Department of Natural Resources headquarters who are considering developing private laboratories to test white-tailed deer in Wisconsin for the fatal nervous system disease. 

Hall's laboratory does most CWD testing nationally and subcontracts with state laboratories for the rest. 

"No test is valid yet for white-tail," Hall said. "We already know we miss about 30 percent with brain tests. If we go the next step and say use lymphoids, it is still not 100 percent. We still don't have sufficient data to say the meat is absolutely safe to the hunter." 

He stressed there has been no direct connection between CWD and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in humans, which has been connected with the mad cow version of prion disease in Europe. 

Nevertheless, Hall said, deer from an infected area should not be eaten - regardless. 

"If you give someone a test result, who will say I guarantee it is 100 percent safe? To provide other than some misguided confidence, it is not a good idea to test all those animals. From a federal perspective, that is not the current thinking. We cannot assist you in food safety testing." 

Hall said it would make much more sense for the state Department of Natural Resources to concentrate on killing the deer where the disease has been found in Dane, Iowa and Sauk counties and reducing the number of deer in nearby areas. 

"If you can truly eradicate the disease instead of spending all that money on testing that may or may not be valid, the use of resources may be better to guarantee an area is safe," Hall said. 

"A food safety claim is outside the jurisdiction of the USDA. We detect animal disease - not whether an individual animal is safe to eat." 

He also warned that it is essential to have qualified labs doing testing, because tests that give false negatives would be a terrible problem. USDA's plan is to meet all testing demands of captive and targeted populations through federal and state labs. 

"Other labs will be allowed to run tests, but our thrust will be to have state labs running them," he said. "We are building a lab system now." 

"Is there any law that says private individuals can't talk to companies for testing regardless of federal approval?" asked Dr. Phil Bochsler of the Wisconsin Veterinary Diagnostics Laboratory. 

Hall said that no federal law prohibits such testing. But the federal government issues permits to receive control samples from diseased animals only if the labs have passed inspection as Biosafety 2 labs. 

Trygve Solberg, chairman of the Natural Resources Board, said that testing must be in place before the hunting season, because hunters will demand it. 

"Testing is absolutely on top. People want to know if they can take it home and eat it. We want to see something done. Some people have said they are not going to hunt," Solberg said. 

"My concern is the confidence of the public in deer hunting and being able to continue to eat the meat and continue to hunt," board member Herb Behnke added. "We are looking at one-third saying I don't know if I'll hunt again. 

"Do they need proof-positive? I don't need to know 30 percent chance of error. Are we looking at satisfying the need or going through a regulation process of two to four years instead? We can't afford to have 300,000 or 400,000 hunters not in the field." 

Butch Johnson, one of three Hayward men hoping to develop a private laboratory to test for CWD, was equally impatient. 

Johnson said he has been unable to get answers on how to proceed or which government agency is in charge. 

"Where do we go from here and who will provide the information? If we have to partner with the Veterinary Diagnostics Lab, tell us. I have to know if I should spend $650,000 to buy equipment," Johnson said. 

"I find it sad we are not talking about how we can collect brain and lymph at deer registration tables. We're not being aggressive enough."


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## twodogsphil (Apr 16, 2002)

Dr. Hall needs to get a grip on himself. Is he giving his personal opinion or is he the official USDA spokesman? Or, is he perhaps a PETA zealot masquerading as a USDA Scientist?

Let's consider the facts. Chronic wasting disease (CWD) is a transmissible spongiform encephalopathy (TSE) that affects cervids and is in the same category of diseases as the so-called mad-cow disease in cattle. However, that is where the relationship stops. There is no evidence linking CWD to mad cow disease, nor evidence that CWD poses any human health risk. Although CWD has been identified in some western state's deer/elk herds for about 40 years, there are no reports that CWD of deer and elk has ever caused any human health problems.

CWD seems more akin to scrapie, a transmissible spongiform encephalopathy (TSE) that affects sheep and goats. Like CWD, there is no evidence linking sheep scrapie to mad cow disease, nor evidence that sheep scrapie poses any human health risk. Likewise, although scrapie has been fairly prevalent in sheep flocks in Western Europe for 250 years and the U.S. for 55 years there are no reports that scrapie of sheep and goats has ever caused any human health problems. Although Scrapie infected sheep have been identifies in 45 0f ther 50 states, the USDA has never suggested that lamb or mutton from an infected area should not be eaten - regardless. 

Eat venison and live long!


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## terry (Sep 13, 2002)

hello ED,

you are so correct, however, some folks will _never_ understand. 
they speak of things they absolutely know nothing about,
and then start screaming PETA boogieman when they don't understand.
frankly, i don't care how much venison they eat, but it's the false information they want to spread that gets under my skin. eat all the
CWD venison you want, but the info you pass;

[Like CWD, there is no evidence linking sheep scrapie to "mad cow disease," nor evidence that sheep scrapie poses any human health risk.]

this is total [email protected] the French have in fact isolated and indentified
a strain of scrapie that is identical to a sporadic strain of CJD.
if some of you hunters want to eat potentially tainted TSE venison
that is great, but passing false info, just because you don't/can't understand the agent, this is wrong to others and very dangerous; 

i suggest all of you read this data on the potential of scrapie and
cwd to humans, if you have not read it already. i hope all of you
base your decission on the science to date, and not data based on
ego's. neither myself nor ED (i don't think) are from PETA. but we
have studied TSEs for years. once again, i am not here as anti-hunter/anti-meat, but only to pass correct info. remember,
i was thrown into the world of TSEs not by choice. i am only here as
activist for THE TRUTH, and the 'truth' we have not been told;

NEW SCIENTIST MAGAZINE 4/02/01

NEW SCIENTIST EDITORIAL PAGE 3

MAD SHEEP DISEASE?

IF THERE is one categorical pronouncement you
can safely make about prion diseases like BSE
or CJD, it is that one should not make
categorical pronouncements. "British beef is
safe" and "there is no BSE in Germany" come
to mind. Now there are two more: "scrapie is
safe", and "people don't catch sporadic CJD".
Scrapie is the most widespread prion
disease, infecting untold numbers of
sheep worldwide. Sporadic CJD is the
old-fashioned pre-BSE kind that is supposed
to happen spontaneously in unlucky people.
But a surprise observation in France suggests
some sCJD cases--though by no means all--may
be linked to scrapie after all (see p 4).

For years, British authorities asserted that
BSE was harmless because it was a form of
scrapie. In fact, the only evidence scrapie
is safe is some broad-brush epidemiology, good
as far as it goes but unable to reveal
occasional risks for some people from some
sheep. Alarm bells should have rung in 1980
when researchers gave monkeys scrapie by
feeding them infected brains. But that
research, like so much other work on
prion diseases, was never followed up.
We still have little idea what BSE does
in pigs and chickens. The Queniborough
vCJD outbreak (see p 5) would be easier
to understand if we knew how much brain
we must eat to be infected. As for scrapie,
it shouldn't take a chance finding to
tell us that there may be dangerous sheep
out there.

(continued next page)

Suspect symptoms

What if you can catch old-fashioned CJD by
eating meat from a sheep infected with
scrapie?

Exclusive from New Scientist magazine

Four years ago, Terry Singeltary watched his
mother die horribly from a degenerative brain disease..........

full text url follows
By Debora MacKenzie

Suspect Symptoms

http://www.newscientist.com/hottopics/bse/suspectsymptoms.jsp

if url dead, go here for 'SUSPECT SYMPTOMS'

you can access article here also;

http://www.organicconsumers.org/meat/scrapiecjd.cfm

Then follow up with PNAS studies from which
new scientist article written from;

Published online before print March 20, 2001

Neurobiology

Adaptation of the bovine spongiform encephalopathy agent to primates and
comparison with Creutzfeldt- Jakob disease: Implications for human health

Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease Surveillance Unit, Western General Hospital,
Crewe Road, Edinburgh EH4 2XU, United Kingdom; and [||] Institute for
Animal Health, Neuropathogenesis Unit, West Mains Road, Edinburgh EH9
3JF, United Kingdom

Edited by D. Carleton Gajdusek, Centre National de la Recherche
Scientifique, Gif-sur-Yvette, France, and approved December 7, 2000
(received for review October 16, 2000)

Abstract

There is substantial scientific evidence to support the notion that
bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) has contaminated human beings,
causing variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD). This disease has
raised concerns about the possibility of an iatrogenic secondary
transmission to humans, because the biological properties of the
primate-adapted BSE agent are unknown. We show that (i) BSE can be
transmitted from primate to primate by intravenous route in 25 months,
and (ii) an iatrogenic transmission of vCJD to humans could be readily
recognized pathologically, whether it occurs by the central or
peripheral route. Strain typing in mice demonstrates that the BSE agent
adapts to macaques in the same way as it does to humans and confirms
that the BSE agent is responsible for vCJD not only in the United
Kingdom but also in France. The agent responsible for French iatrogenic
growth hormone-linked CJD taken as a control is very different from vCJD
but is similar to that found in one case of sporadic CJD and one sheep
scrapie isolate. These data will be key in identifying the origin of
human cases of prion disease, including accidental vCJD transmission,
and could provide bases for vCJD risk assessment.

Introduction

The recognition of a variant of the human transmissible spongiform
encephalopathy (TSE) Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (vCJD) in the U.K. in
1996 raised the major concern that it would correspond to human
infection with the agent responsible for bovine spongiform
encephalopathy (BSE; ref. 1). Transmission of BSE to macaques provided
the first experimental evidence as it produced a disease close to vCJD
in humans (2). Strain typing in inbred mice (consisting of measuring the
incubation period and establishing lesion profiles corresponding to the
strain-specific distribution of brain vacuolation) allows reliable
identification of TSE strains (3). This method, together with
biochemical methods, has revealed a single phenotype for the agents of
BSE and the British cases of vCJD (4-6). Mice expressing only the bovine
prion protein (PrP) were highly susceptible to vCJD and BSE, which
induced the same disease (7). Thus, it is now well established that BSE
has caused vCJD, probably by alimentary contamination. In this respect,
the finding of abnormal PrP labeling in the gastrointestinal tract and
lymphatic tissues of orally BSE-contaminated lemurs shows that the BSE
agent can infect primates by the oral route (8). About 1 million
contaminated cattle may have entered the human food chain, and the
future number of vCJD cases could range from 63 to 136,000 depending on
the incubation period of BSE in humans (9). Unlike sporadic CJD (sCJD)
and iatrogenic CJD (iCJD) linked to the administration of contaminated
growth hormone extracted from human hypophyses, in vCJD, the infectious
agent seems to be widely distributed in lymphoid organs, as pathological
PrP (PrPres) can be detected in tonsils, lymph nodes, spleen, and
appendix even in the preclinical phase of the disease (10, 11). This
raises a public health issue with regard to the risk of iatrogenic
transmission of vCJD through surgical instruments, grafts, blood
transfusion, or parenteral administration of biological products of
human origin. However, this risk is difficult to assess, because it
largely depends on factors such as the virulence of the BSE agent
adapted to primates and the efficiency of secondary transmission to
humans by a peripheral route such as the i.v. one. A further issue is
whether vCJD accidentally acquired from humans would be recognized. The
latter poses the question of a phenotypic variation of the BSE agent
after successive transmissions in humans: does it retain its strain
characteristics, and does it induce a pathology similar to that observed
in the previous host? A 9-year history of transmission of BSE to
primates and mice enables us today to clarify a number of these
important points.

Although BSE has mainly affected the U.K., two definite cases and one
probable case of vCJD have now been reported in France in people who
have never resided in the U.K. (12, 13). We strain-typed the first of
these cases to establish its origin. Strain typing in C57BL/6 mice of
BSE, French, and British vCJD was compared with that of BSE passaged in
nonhuman primates, thus allowing us to study the effect of serial
passages in primates. Comparisons were also made with French cases of
sCJD and iCJD and two strains of scrapie (one of French and one of U.S.
origin). Our findings provide experimental demonstration that the same
agent, namely that responsible for the cattle disease BSE, has caused
vCJD both in France and in the U.K., in line with biochemical data and
with the fact that, until 1996, about 10% of the beef consumed in France
was imported from the U.K. We found that the BSE agent in nonhuman
primates is similar to that causing vCJD in humans and tends to evolve
rapidly toward a primate-adapted variant. Furthermore, we showed that
the strain responsible for iCJD is closely related to that of one
patient with sCJD, and, more unexpectedly, that these agents were
similar to the French scrapie strain studied (but different from the
U.S. scrapie strain). This finding requires a cautious interpretation
for several reasons, not least because of the inevitably limited number
of TSE strains that can be studied by such a cumbersome method as strain
typing. Nonetheless, it also prompts reconsideration of the possibility
that, in some instances, sheep and human TSEs can share a common origin.

snip...

http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/041490898v1

read the risks from Scrapie to Humans from an expert;

STATEMENT OF DR HELEN GRANT MD FRCP
ISSUED 13/05/1999

BSE INQUIRY

http://www.bseinquiry.gov.uk/files/ws/s410.pdf
http://www.bseinquiry.gov.uk/files/ws/s410x.pdf

http://www.bseinquiry.gov.uk/evidence/ws/ws8.htm

CWD to CJD in humans (why not?), as easy as BSE/Scrapie;

The EMBO Journal, Vol. 19, No. 17 pp. 4425-4430, 2000
© European Molecular Biology Organization

Evidence of a molecular barrier limiting
susceptibility of humans, cattle and sheep to
chronic wasting disease

G.J. Raymond1, A. Bossers2, L.D. Raymond1, K.I. O?Rourke3,
L.E. McHolland4, P.K. Bryant III4, M.W. Miller5, E.S. Williams6, M.
Smits2 and B. Caughey1,7

1NIAID/NIH Rocky Mountain Laboratories, Hamilton, MT 59840,
3USDA/ARS/ADRU, Pullman, WA 99164-7030, 4USDA/ARS/ABADRL,
Laramie, WY 82071, 5Colorado Division of Wildlife, Wildlife Research
Center, Fort Collins, CO 80526-2097, 

Abstract

Chronic wasting disease (CWD) is a transmissible
spongiform encephalopathy (TSE) of deer and elk,
and little is known about its transmissibility to other
species. An important factor controlling
interspecies TSE susceptibility is prion protein (PrP)
homology between the source and recipient
species/genotypes. Furthermore, the efficiency with which
the protease-resistant PrP (PrP-res) of one
species induces the in vitro conversion of the normal PrP
(PrP-sen) of another species to the
protease-resistant state correlates with the cross-species
transmissibility of TSE agents. Here we
show that the CWD-associated PrP-res (PrPCWD) of cervids
readily induces the conversion of recombinant cervid PrP-sen
molecules to the protease-resistant state in accordance
with the known transmissibility of CWD between cervids. In contrast,
PrPCWD-induced conversions of human and bovine PrP-sen were
much less efficient, and conversion of ovine PrP-sen was
intermediate. These results demonstrate a barrier at the
molecular level that should limit the susceptibility of these non-cervid
species to CWD.

snip...

Clearly, it is premature to draw firm conclusions about CWD
passing naturally into humans, cattle and sheep, but the present
results suggest that CWD transmissions to humans would be as
limited by PrP incompatibility as transmissions of BSE or sheep
scrapie to humans. Although there is no evidence that sheep
scrapie has affected humans, it is likely that BSE has caused variant
CJD in 74 people (definite and probable variant CJD cases to
date according to the UK CJD Surveillance Unit). Given the
presumably large number of people exposed to BSE infectivity,
the susceptibility of humans may still be very low compared with
cattle, which would be consistent with the relatively inefficient
conversion of human PrP-sen by PrPBSE. Nonetheless, since
humans have apparently been infected by BSE, it would seem prudent
to take reasonable measures to limit exposure of humans
(as well as sheep and cattle) to CWD infectivity as has been
recommended for other animal TSEs.

snip...

http://www.emboj.org/current.shtml

Scrapie to Humans?

1: Neuroepidemiology 1985;4(4):240-9

Sheep consumption: a possible source of spongiform encephalopathy in humans.

Davanipour Z, Alter M, Sobel E, Callahan M.

A fatal spongiform encephalopathy of sheep and goats (scrapie) shares many characteristics with Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD), a similar dementing illness of humans. To investigate the possibility that CJD is acquired by ingestion of contaminated sheep products, we collected information on production, slaughtering practices, and marketing of sheep in Pennsylvania. The study revealed that sheep were usually marketed before central nervous system signs of scrapie are expected to appear; breeds known to be susceptible to the disease were the most common breeds raised in the area; sheep were imported from other states including those with a high frequency of scrapie; use of veterinary services on the sheep farms investigated and, hence, opportunities to detect the disease were limited; sheep producers in the area knew little about scrapie despite the fact that the disease has been reported in the area, and animal organs including sheep organs were sometimes included in processed food. Therefore, it was concluded that in Pennsylvania there are some 'weak links' through which scrapie-infected animals could contaminate human food, and that consumption of these foods could perhaps account for spongiform encephalopathy in humans. The weak links observed are probably not unique to Pennsylvania.

PMID: 3915057

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov:80/entr...eve&db=PubMed&list_uids=3915057&dopt=Abstract

My submission to federal gov. on BSE and
the 'lack of' surveillance;

https://199.132.50.48/E-Commen.nsf/($All)?OpenView

https://199.132.50.48/E-Commen.nsf/...c147d3037a26dfe285256ab000769557?OpenDocument

Houston Chronicle article Aug. 5, 2001

MAD COW DISEASE: Could It Happen Here?

'ARCHIVED'

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/story.hts/metropolitan/991714

go here for chronicle article;

http://www.organicconsumers.org/madcow/crusade8501.cfm

http://www.vegancowboy.org/TSS-MadCowHere.htm

From: TSS (216-119-163-189.ipset45.wt.net)
Subject: CWD aka MAD DEER/ELK TO HUMANS ???
Date: September 30, 2002 at 7:06 am PST

From: "Belay, Ermias"
To:
Cc: "Race, Richard (NIH)" ; ; "Belay,
Ermias"
Sent: Monday, September 30, 2002 9:22 AM
Subject: RE: TO CDC AND NIH - PUB MED- 3 MORE DEATHS - CWD - YOUNG HUNTERS

> Dear Sir/Madam,
> In the Archives of Neurology you quoted (the abstract of which was

attached

> to your email), we did not say CWD in humans will present like variant

CJD.

> That assumption would be wrong. I encourage you to read the whole
article
> and call me if you have questions or need more clarification (phone:
> 404-639-3091). Also, we do not claim that "no-one has ever been
infected
> with prion disease from eating venison." Our conclusion stating that we
> found no strong evidence of CWD transmission to humans in the
article you
> quoted or in any other forum is limited to the patients we
investigated.
>
> Ermias Belay, M.D.
> Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
>

> > -----Original Message-----
> > From:
> > Sent: Sunday, September 29, 2002 10:15 AM
> > To: [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]
> > Subject: TO CDC AND NIH - PUB MED- 3 MORE DEATHS - CWD - YOUNG
> > HUNTERS

http://www.vegsource.com/talk/madcow/messages/9911691.html

Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease in Unusually Young Patients Who Consumed
Venison - TSS 10/01/02 (0)

PLEASE SEE FULL TEXT !

http://www.vegsource.com/talk/madcow/messages/9911709.html

Aguzzi warns of CWD danger

The TSE family of diseases also includes chronic wasting disease (CWD)
in deer, a condition that has spread in the US in recent years (Nature
416, 569; 2002). Speaking at the Days of Molecular Medicine conference
in La Jolla in March, prion expert Adriano Aguzzi issued a strong
warning against underestimating this form of TSE.

"For more than a decade, the US has by-and-large considered mad cows
to be an exquisitely European problem. The perceived need to protect
US citizens from this alien threat has even prompted the deferral of
blood donors from Europe," he said. "Yet the threat-from-within
posed by CWD needs careful consideration, since the evidence that CWD
is less dangerous to humans than BSE is less-than-complete. Aguzzi
went on to point out that CWD is arguably the most mysterious of all
prion diseases.

"Its horizontal spread among the wild population is exceedingly
efficient, and appears to have reached a prevalence unprecedented even
by BSE in the UK at its peak. The pathogenesis of CWD, therefore,
deserves a vigorous research effort. Europeans also need to think
about this problem, and it would be timely and appropriate to increase
CWD surveillance in Europe too." Aguzzi has secured funding from the
National Institutes of Health to investigate CWD, and the effort will
be lead by Christina Sigurdson in his department at the University of
Zurich. KAREN BIRMINGHAM, LONDON

This quote from Dr. Gambetti is especially significant since he is the
rather cautious TSE researcher under contract with the Centers for Disease
Control to examine the brains of individuals who have died of CJD.
-----------------

Pierluigi Gambetti, director of the National Prion Disease Pathology
Surveillance Center at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland,
said all deer should be tested for chronic wasting disease before any
processing is done.

"There is no way around it," he said. "Nobody should touch that meat
unless it has been tested."
--------------------------------------

http://www.ledger-enquirer.com/mld/...ion/3954298.htm
======================================================

'As implied in the Inset 25 we must not assume that transmission
of BSE to other species will invariably present pathology typical
of a scrapie-like disease.'

http://www.bse.org.uk/files/yb/1991/01/04004001.pdf

this is a global environmental nightmare that the incubation
period is what is fooling everyone, and the _not_ testing
to find TSEs in USA cattle of course is really fooling everyone,
but that's another story.

happy hunting and enjoy that venison, but please don't shoot the
messenger...

TSS


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## terry (Sep 13, 2002)

more on Dr. Grant and potential for Scrapie to humans through various
modes of transmission...TSS

http://www.fda.gov/ohrms/dockets/dailys/00/mar00/030100/emc0597.rtf

and more below; 

Let me illustrate the point. A distinguished neuropathologist from Charing Cross hospital, Dr. Helen Grant, writing in The Times, says of the official assurance in 1987 that BSE posed no risk to humans : "This view is highly irresponsible and dangerous. The fact is that there may be a risk to humans : indeed some of us may already be incubating this fatal dementia".

Dr. Grant and Professor William Blackwood, who is also from Charing Cross hospital, again in a letter to The Times, this time after Southwood had reported, stated :

"unless bovine brain is totally banned from food, or is avoided, a new human health hazard hovers over us, potentially far more serious than the various treatable infections we have lately heard so much about. It is the risk of an untreatable dementia."

Column 449
The Times' medical correspondent, who is a practising doctor, has written that no one can be sure that the causal agent has "not already been picked up by people as they enjoyed a piece of marrow or an Irish stew, or ate a meat pie which had contained brains or meat from an infected, but not yet stricken, animal".

He goes on to say :

"recent research has suggested that it is probable that many cases of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease have followed the eating of sheep infected by scrapie".

With regard to the risk of BSE to humans, he states :

"If the disease can be spread in food from sheep to cows, why not through beasts to humans?".

http://www.parliament.the-stationery-office.co.uk/pa/cm198889/cmhansrd/1989-05-17/Debate-21.html


Scientist shows scrapie survives rendering process
US still using rendered sheep as feed supplement
USDA-APHIS Scrapie Fact Sheet
Scrapie Research
CJD from rabies vaccine made from sheep's brain
Survival of scrapie virus after 3 years' burial
Lamb-eater, 53, dies in Oregon
Worldwide scrapie incidence
3 sheepbreeders with multiple sclerosis-like GSS
New Zealand scrapie history
Scrapie Statistics in the USA

Is Scrapie Transmittable to Humans?

http://www.cyber-dyne.com/~tom/scrapie_human.html

W.H.O.

snip...

WHO/CDS/CSR/APH/2000.2

snip...

WHO/CDS/CSR/APH/2000.2

3.5 Animal vaccine-related Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathy risks:
Scrapie outbreak in Italy
Maurizio Pocchiari:
Historically, Italy has had a low incidence of scrapie; however, in 1997
there was a dramatic increase in the number of reported flocks. This
increase in reports included a relatively high proportion of goat
flocks, generally considered more resistant to natural scrapie than
sheep. Details of the timing of the flock outbreaks, composition of the
flocks and vaccination status were provided. It was noted that
vaccination for Mycoplasma agalactiae was provided to a large proportion
of the flocks developing scrapie, and that this vaccine is made from
sheep brain and mammary gland. Small batches of brain and mammary glands
are mixed, and given subcutaneously to adult and young animals,
providing considerable possible exposure to contaminated material. Some
flocks receiving this vaccine did not develop scrapie, and western blot
and transmission experiments are underway. However, the consultation
agreed that the epidemiologic evidence points toward a vaccine origin
for the scrapie disease seen in some of the flocks.

snip...

7.6 Could vaccines prepared from animal brain tissue pose a risk of
transmission of Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathies to humans?
François Meslin:
Over 40,000 deaths due to rabies are reported annually worldwide and
each year seven to eight million people receive antirabies vaccine
treatment following dog bites. Dog rabies poses a significant public
health problem in Asia, as 85% of the human deaths due to rabies
reported worldwide and 80% of the vaccine doses applied in
developing countries come from this part of the world.
In many Asian countries such as Bangladesh, India, Nepal and Pakistan,
sheep-brain based Semple vaccine 15 is the only vaccine available free
of cost. It represents 50 to 95% of all vaccine doses used for rabies
post-exposure treatment, depending upon the country. A complete
treatment consists of 10 subcutaneous daily injections
of 2 to 5 ml (depending mainly on patient size and nature of the
exposure) plus booster doses; that is a total of 25 to 50 ml of the 5 %
sheep brain suspension injected over a 10-day period.
According to the literature, the reported rate of neuroparalytic
complications following the use of this vaccine varies from 1:600 to
1:1575 administrations, and 20-25% of these lead to death. The exact
incidence of neuroparalytic complications throughout India or other
countries in the area is not known. However, in the State of
Karnataka, India, 112 cases of neuroparalytic accidents were admitted in
the past 20 years following Semple vaccine administration. In contrast,
the newly developed cell culture or embryonating egg vaccines are
effective and safe, with lower and less severe complication rates.
In many Asian countries, Semple type vaccine has been used for the past
90 years. In India forty million ml of this vaccine are produced in this
country to treat at least 500 000 persons each year. In Pakistan 450 000
and in Bangladesh 60 000 people receive Semple type vaccine after
possible exposure to rabies. There is a theoretical risk of TSE
transmission to humans through parenteral administration of
these products. Although there is to date no evidence of such
occurrences in human medicine, recent events in the TSE field have
demonstrated that an animal TSE agent could affect human beings.
The situation is very similar regarding rabies vaccines for animal use.
For example various Indian veterinary vaccine institutes prepare 100
million ml of Semple vaccine for use in both rabies pre-and
post-exposure prophylaxis in dogs and food production animals each year.
Scrapie could be theoretically transmitted to animal vaccine recipients,
especially ruminants, through sheep-brain based vaccines such as
Semple type vaccine. This could happen because scrapie infectivity, if
present, would not be inactivated by the manufacturing process. In this
connection, a recent 15 ß-propiolactone inactivated or phenolized
antirabies vaccine containing 5% suspension of sheep brain infected with
a fixed strain of rabies virus.
WHO/CDS/CSR/APH/2000.2
34 WHO Consultation on Public Health and Animal TSEs
Epidemiology, Risk and Research Requirements
publication strongly suggests that scrapie was transmitted to sheep and
goats through the administration of a veterinary vaccine whose method of
preparation is similar to the Semple type vaccine. In addition, various
Asian countries have begun to use animal tissues as feed supplement for
intensive sheep and dairy cattle production. This introduces an
additional, though still theoretical, possibility that scrapie, or even
BSE, could spread among the sheep population and enter the sheep flocks
that are used as a source of rabies vaccine production for human or
animal use. In areas where the status of animal TSE is not well
documented, this risk cannot be totally ruled out, though it may be
remote, as there is no test available at present to detect
pre-clinical cases of prion disease in sheep.

snip...

http://www.who.int/emc-documents/tse/docs/whocdscsraph20002.pdf

CJD/VACCINES/CHILDREN -- could the "V" in vCJD mean vaccine???

'Confidential'

http://www.vegsource.com/talk/lyman/messages/7622.html

http://www.bse.org.uk/files/yb/1990/01/10009001.pdf

http://www.bseinquiry.gov.uk/files/ws/s422.pdf

http://www.bseinquiry.gov.uk/files/yb/1989/07/03004001.pdf

Louping-ill vaccine

Documents from November 23rd, 1946 

(i acquired this through the FOIA in the UK/BSE Inquiry)

http://www.vegsource.com/talk/lyman/messages/7634.html


http://www.who.int/emc-documents/tse/docs/whocdscsraph20002.pdf

http://www.vegancowboy.org/TSS-part4of8.htm

http://www.vegsource.com/talk/lyman/messages/7622.html

http://www.vegsource.com/talk/lyman/messages/7634.html

http://www.whale.to/v/singeltary7.html

http://www.mad-cow.org/00/may00_news.html

http://www.mad-cow.org/00/jul00_dont_eat_sheep.html#hhh

Terry S. Singeltary Sr., Bacliff, Texas USA


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## Ed Gehrman (Aug 20, 2002)

Phil, Terry,
I'm a fisherman, not a hunter, but I have nothing against hunters. 
As Terry points out, the general public has been consistently
misinformed about the nature of TSE. There's actually very little difference between the various strains of TSE; and all result in agonizing death. 
Everyone must make up their own mind about eating venison.
While its true the chances are slim that an individual deer
is infected, you'll never be one hundred percent sure, even if its tested.
The main problem is the confusion over the identity of the infective agent. As you all probably know by now, I believe that there is overwhelming evidence that the agent is a conventional bacteria, the parasitic spiroplasma. If this is the case,
then an infected organism will not show evidence of prions immediately. That's mainly why the tests don't show conclusive results. Infection can be present without the tell-tail prion indicators.
Ed


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