[CTRL] vCJD in Sheeps
-Caveat Lector- >From www.wsws.org WSWS : News & Analysis : Medicine & Health : BSE/CJD Britain: Report highlights BSE danger from infected sheep By Barry Mason 21 January 2002 Back to screen version| Send this link by email | Email the author The risk to humans developing variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (vCJD) could be far greater if the brain-wasting disease Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) has entered the sheep population. This was the conclusion of a study published in the British science magazine Nature on January 10. The study was carried out by researchers working in the infectious diseases department of Imperial College London led by Professor Neil Ferguson. BSE in cattle, also known as mad cow disease, is believed to have been spread by the practice of feeding cows the rendered remains of slaughtered cattle and other livestock. Until legislation banned the practice, sheep were also fed the same material. Since it began in the late 1980s, the BSE epidemic has infected nearly 180,000 cattle. At its height in 1992 over 36,000 cattle had the disease. Numbers have now declined with around 700 cases last year. Variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Diseasethe human form of BSEis transmitted by eating infected meat or other animal products. Since 1995, 104 mainly young people have died of the disease, with nine more people currently diagno sed as suffering from this terminal and incurable condition. The eventual number of people who could be affected is still an unknown, because of the extremely long incubation period for the disease. There also remains the possibility of a second wave of infection via human-to-human transmission as a result of surgical procedures. Since the infective agent, the BSE prion, is extremely difficult to destroy, the usual sterilisation methods u sed on surgical instruments do not eradicate it. The researchers at Imperial College considered three possible scenarios if BSE has passed into the national sheep flock. The worst possible case considered the effect of BSE spreading both within and between sheep flocks. The studys median scenario projected the spread only within a flock, while the best-case scenario investigated what would happen if it spread neither between nor within flocks. Sophisticated mathematical models were dev ised to predict the possible effects on the human population. In the worst case, the study predicts that 150,000 people could die as a result of eating infected sheep meat. This figure is three times higher than the worse case scenario of human deaths from vCJD contracted from eatin g contaminated beef. It has not yet been shown whether sheep have in fact contracted the disease. The report is based on the assumption that BSE has passed from cattle to sheep and has been spreading from sheep to sheep. Many scientists think that such a cross over from cattle, and its subsequent spread within sheep, is a possibility. Professor Neil Ferguson said, In some ways Id be surprised if BSE wasnt found in sheep. One difficulty detecting BSE in sheep is that sheep are also subject to a brain-wasting disease known as scrapie. This has been in the sheep population for 200 years and is considered harmless to humans. Currently there i s no test to distinguish between BSE and scrapie in sheep. Studies have shown that BSE in sheep behaves differently to the disease in cattle. It infects a wider range of sheep tissues at an earlier age. There are fears that BSE in sheep could mimic scrapie, which passes easily by horizontal infection from sheep to sheep. Under current legislation, the ban on sheep offal is not as extensive as that on cattle offal, some of the most infective material. With sheep under 12 months old, only the spleen has to be removed before the carcass can enter the human food chain. For sheep older than one year, the skull, brain, eyes, tonsils and spinal chord are banned, but not the lymph nodes or intestines (as in cattle). Professor Ferguson said, The current risk from sheep could be greater than that from cattle, due to the more intensive controls in place to protect human health from exposure to infected cattle, as compared with sheep. In a newspaper article in August last year, former government advisor Dr Richard Kimberlin warned of the potential danger from BSE-infected sheep: We now know that several tissues from BSE-infected sheep, including lymph nodes, pose a greater risk than the same tissues from infected cattle. The Imperial College team says that banning all internal sheep organs from the human food chain would reduce the health risk by 90 percent. Frances Hall, secretary of the Human BSE Foundation, said, If it is in sheep, people could have been eating contaminated meat for years. Frances, whose son Peter died from vCJD in 1996, added, Its very sad to think mo re families might be having to go through the same nightmare weve gone through needlessly. The Department fo
[CTRL] vCJD In French West Indies
http://news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,2044923^1702,00.html Authorities investigate human mad cow case From AFP in Paris 27may01 AUTHORITIES are investigating a possible case of the human variant of mad cow disease in the French West Indian island of Guadeloupe, the health ministry in Paris said late today. "Additional examinations are under way and it is not at this stage possible to make a definitive judgment" on whether the patient was suffering from variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (vCJD), the ministry said in a statement. The disease is a fatal brain-wasting illness thought to be transmitted through the consumption of meat from cows infected with bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), commonly known as mad cow disease. Tests on two other patients on the island with a neurological illness did not conclusively indicate they were suffering from the human form of mad cow disease. The head of France's food authority in Guadeloupe, Jean-Luc Grangeon, told AFP that a probe had been opened into whether infected meat or animal meal made from ground-up animal carcasses had been imported into the island from Britain. Health ministry officials have refused to identify the patients or indicate where they are being treated, saying they lacked authority from the families. French radio said today that two people suspected of having CJD were admitted to the University Hospital in Guadeloupe's main city Pointe-a-Pitre, and that a third patient was on the French-Dutch island of St Martin. The ministry drew a distinction between "classic" cases of CJD, a pathology that strikes about 80 people per year in mainland France, and variant vCJD. In 1997, one person died of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in Guadeloupe, but a study published in the British medical journal Lancet showed that the death had nothing to do with tainted meat, the ministry said.In mainland France, three people have died from vCJD so far.
[CTRL] vCJD
-Caveat Lector-
>>What's scary is the extent to which the beef may have been distributed ... and how
long ago, as in "Lend-Lease" and post-war occupation forces ("sponging", i.e.) ...
A<>E<>R <<<
>From World Socialist Web Site www.wsws.org
WSWS : News & Analysis : Europe: Britain
British government admits to 250,000 possible variant CJD deaths
By Julie Hyland
3 November 2000
Back to screen version
The Blair government has doubled its estimation of the possible number of victims of
variant Creutzfeldt Jacobs Disease (vCJD), caused by eating beef infected with "mad
cow disease" (BSE-Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy) from 136,000 to 250,000,
according to the BBC. The revision means that the government is now working on a
"worst case scenario" of one in every 250 people in Britain dying from the disease.
Variant CJD is a fatal brain wasting disease beginning typically with depressive-
type symptoms, lack of coordination and unspecified pains, before progressing to
complete helplessness, blindness and certain death. As yet there is no proven means
of arresting the disease's progress, let alone curing it.
The revised estimate was made public just days after Judge Lord Phillips published
the final report of the government-convened inquiry into BSE. After a two-year
investigation, Phillips' report did not make any criticisms of the food industry,
whose practices lie at the heart of the scandal, or of former government ministers,
despite acknowledging their efforts to cover-up the crisis.
Phillips conclusion that no one could be held responsible for the worst food health
disaster in Britain was not surprising. The incoming Labour government, which
convened the Inquiry in 1997, intended it mainly as a means of defusing public anger
over a crisis that had played a significant role in eroding support for the previous
Conservative government.
The official BSE report was followed by the announcement that the Labour government
would ensure a care and compensation package to the families of those who died.
Agriculture Secretary Nick Brown, speaking on BBC TV's Breakfast with Frost
programme, admitted that the number of people who will die from vCJD could grow
"much, much larger". He summed up official indifference to the terrible fate that
could befall many families by claiming the numbers were "just predictions", whilst
taking the opportunity to promote the British beef industry. "I eat British beef, I
know British beef is amongst the safest in the world," Brown stated.
Also speaking to the BBC, Professor John Collinge, of the BSE Advisory Committee,
took issue with the "false optimism and wishful thinking, which has bedevilled", the
BSE investigation "for too long." "We might be seeing an epidemic that involves
hundreds of thousands of people. Let's hope that's not the case, but it's still
possible", he said.
Putting the risks into context, microbiologist and leading CJD expert Dr Stephen
Dealler said on average people in the UK had eaten 50 meals made from the tissue of
an infected animal. "At the moment the number of cases of CJD we are seeing are
doubling every year. If they double for a long time then the numbers are in
millions, if they double for just a few years then the numbers are in thousands. At
the moment it is very difficult to know," Dealler said. The Report from the official
BSE Inquiry found that a cow could be infected with BSE by eating contaminated
material the size of a peppercorn.
Government adviser Professor Roy Anderson said that news that a 74-year old man had
died from vCJD last yearmost known victims have been youngernecessitated a major
re-evaluation of the possible scale of the crisis. Anderson's earlier computer
predictions had forecast that up to 6,000 people had been infected between 1980 and
1996. That figure could now rise as high as 130,000 as there is concern that many
elderly people with vCJD could have been wrongly diagnosed as suffering from
Alzheimer's disease, which has similar symptoms.
Fears of a vCJD epidemic have also been heightened by news that a cluster pattern of
cases may be occurring in a former South Yorkshire mining village. Accountant Sarah
Roberts, 28, of Armthorpe, Doncaster, died in September only nine weeks after she
was diagnosed with vCJD. Her former neighbour and friend Matthew Parker, 19, who
attended the same school, died of vCJD in 1997.
It has now been revealed that a third victim of vCJD, former RAF policeman Adrian
Hodgkinson, 25, had made regular visits to Armthorpe to see his grandmother every
weekend between 1972 and 1986. If a link is proven it would indicate that the three
victims may have been infected by the same source. The CJD surveillance unit at
Edinburgh University is exploring the possible link. If Doncaster does reveal a
cluster it will be the second such grouping in Britain. Last month, a fifth person
in the Leicestershire village of Queniborough died from suspected vCJD, following
the deaths of four others who had lived ther
