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From: TSS (216-119-156-133.ipset36.wt.net)
Subject: Major human mad cow epidemic unlikely (MEDIA OUT OF TOUCH WITH REALITY, what about the other strains and there victims$)
Date: January 11, 2005 at 5:43 pm PST

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Major human mad cow epidemic unlikely (MEDIA OUT OF TOUCH WITH REALITY)
Date: Tue, 11 Jan 2005 19:40:39 -0600
From: "Terry S. Singeltary Sr."
To: Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy
CC: CJDVoice

Major human mad cow epidemic unlikely
Wed Jan 12, 2005 12:54 AM GMT

By Patricia Reaney

LONDON (Reuters) - A major epidemic of the human form of mad cow disease
is unlikely, scientists say.

Estimates of how many people are likely to develop the fatal brain
disease from eating meat contaminated with bovine spongiform
encephalopathy (BSE) have varied widely.

But researchers at Imperial College London said on Wednesday they
believed only about 70 future cases of variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease
(vCJD) would be diagnosed in the country.

"We think that the epidemic will be quite small in terms of cases that
have arisen from consumption of beef," said epidemiologist Dr Azra Ghani.

The calculations are based on tonsil and appendix samples, where
evidence of infection is most evident, taken from 12,764 people. Three
samples tested positive but only one matched tissue taken from a person
with the disease.

The pool of infected people could be up to 3,800 people, but only a
small number of them would develop the illness.

"One reason for the discrepancy between the high estimated number of
positive tests and low number of actual recorded clinical cases could be
that many infected individuals do not go on to develop clinical disease
in their lifetime," Ghani said.

Because of the long incubation period, which scientists estimate could
be from 10 to 20 years, it has been difficult to predict how many cases
of vCJD there will be.

Up to November 1 last year, 146 people had died from definitive or
probable vCJD in Britain, the Department of Health says.

Ghani and her team reported their findings in Wednesday's Journal of the
Royal Society Interface. Their estimate only refers to people infected
through BSE-infected beef.

"Although our results indicate there is little chance of large numbers
of vCJD infections from primary transmission, we have not taken into
account the possibility of additional cases infected by blood
transfusion. This could result in more clinical cases emerging at a
later date," she said.

Two suspected cases of vCJD via blood transfusion have been reported so
far. The government announced what was thought to be the world's first
case in December 2003 after a patient died several years after receiving
blood from a donor later found to have had the illness.

The second case was reported last July. The patient did not die of vCJD
but an autopsy of the individual, who had a blood transfusion five year
earlier from a person who later developed vCJD, showed the infectious
agent in the spleen.

"The disease in terms of clinical cases seems to have peaked but we
still have this uncertainty regarding secondary transmission," Ghani said.

© Reuters 2005. All Rights Reserved.

http://www.reuters.co.uk/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=652430

CJD Figures UK, up to 7th January 2005

http://www.cjd.ed.ac.uk/figures.htm

PLEASE note steady increase in sporadic CJD.

THE lame excuse of ;

> 49. In answer, Professor Ironside presented information on sCJD
> deaths from 1985 to 29 November 2004 that indicated the number
> of sCJD deaths per annum in the UK was increasing, but explained
> that this was possibly due to better case ascertainment, particularly
> in the elderly. Comparable data have been obtained in European
> countries and Australia, which showed similar changes in the
> incidence of sporadic CJD. France, Germany and Italy had higher
> relative mortality rates for sCJD than the UK, over the period
> examined (1 Jan 2004 to 30 September 2004).

http://www.seac.gov.uk/minutes/30nov_draft.pdf

IS beginning to sound like a broken record. THIS lame excuse has been
repeated for 15 years, every year, and is just that, a lame excuse.

WHEN does it become due to an increase and NOT a lame excuse
of better surveillance$

I think the time is here;

IN light of Asante/Collinge et al findings that BSE transmission to the
129-methionine genotype can lead to an alternate phenotype that is
indistinguishable from type 2 PrPSc, the commonest _sporadic_ CJD;

-------- Original Message -------- Subject: re-BSE prions propagate as

either variant CJD-like or sporadic CJD Date: Thu, 28 Nov 2002 10:23:43

-0000 From: "Asante, Emmanuel A" To:
"'flounder@wt.net'"

Dear Terry,

I have been asked by Professor Collinge to respond to your request. I am

a Senior Scientist in the MRC Prion Unit and the lead author on the

paper. I have attached a pdf copy of the paper for your attention. Thank

you for your interest in the paper.

In respect of your first question, the simple answer is, yes. As you

will find in the paper, we have managed to associate the alternate

phenotype to type 2 PrPSc, the commonest sporadic CJD.

It is too early to be able to claim any further sub-classification in

respect of Heidenhain variant CJD or Vicky Rimmer's version. It will

take further studies, which are on-going, to establish if there are

sub-types to our initial finding which we are now reporting. The main

point of the paper is that, as well as leading to the expected new

variant CJD phenotype, BSE transmission to the 129-methionine genotype

can lead to an alternate phenotype which is indistinguishable from type

2 PrPSc.

I hope reading the paper will enlighten you more on the subject. If I

can be of any further assistance please to not hesitate to ask. Best wishes.

Emmanuel Asante

<> ____________________________________

Dr. Emmanuel A Asante MRC Prion Unit & Neurogenetics Dept. Imperial

College School of Medicine (St. Mary's) Norfolk Place, LONDON W2 1PG

Tel: +44 (0)20 7594 3794 Fax: +44 (0)20 7706 3272 email:

e.asante@ic.ac.uk (until 9/12/02)

New e-mail: e.asante@prion.ucl.ac.uk (active from now)

____________________________________

snip...

full text ;

http://www.fda.gov/ohrms/dockets/ac/03/slides/3923s1_OPH.htm

AND the new findings of BASE in cattle in Italy of Identification of a
second bovine amyloidotic spongiform encephalopathy: Molecular
similarities with sporadic

Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease

http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/abstract/0305777101v1

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

THE findings from Corinne Ida Lasmézas*, [dagger] , Jean-Guy Fournier*,
Virginie Nouvel*,

Hermann Boe*, Domíníque Marcé*, François Lamoury*, Nicolas Kopp [Dagger

] , Jean-Jacques Hauw§, James Ironside¶, Moira Bruce [||] , Dominique

Dormont*, and Jean-Philippe Deslys* et al, that 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;

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

Characterization of two distinct prion strains
derived from bovine spongiform encephalopathy
transmissions to inbred mice

http://vir.sgmjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/85/8/2471

ALL animals for human/animal consumption must be tested for TSE.

ALL human TSEs must be made reportable Nationally and Internationally...

TSS

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