Mad Cow Disease – What to Know – as part of the education series by GeoBeats.
Mad Cow Disease – What is It?
Scientifically named Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy, it is a progressive neurological disease that affects a cow’s nervous system. Once infected, the cow’s behavior becomes erratic – inability to walk, uncontrolled movements and lower milk production. Incubation period can be months, even years. There’s no known treatment and the disease is fatal.
How Do Cows Get Infected?
A cow gets infected with the disease if they eat diseased feed which has abnormal proteins called prions found in brains, spinal cords, and other parts. These prions cause the degeneration in brain, giving it a spongy like appearance.
How Can It Affect Us?
Humans don’t get mad cow disease as such but they get a variant of it if they eat the diseased cattle tissue. Health officials in the US and elsewhere control such scenarios by periodic sampling and prohibiting cattle parts in feed which may contain prions.
Where Has It Been Reported So Far?
Although United Kingdom has been most impacted by the mad cow disease so far, the BSE has been reported in many countries around the word. Millions of cattle have been slaughtered and nearly 200,000 cows have died. Around 200 humans have lost their lives.
In the US recently, a cow tested positive for the disease but the health officials say that the infected cow wasn’t designated for meat consumption and it was an atypical strain of the disease.
crimsoncoin says
Mmm Yummy was main course in Britain for a while, cjd on toast.
Cannibalistic politics, I blame the critters
YourUncleScroatie says
Oh.I just know….Rachael.
Naco Koala says
What are they Mad about…
Sophia Dao says
aw poor cows
Kanye East says
Sarcasm right?
giuseppe urso says
maybe there is a treatment, but nobody would gain money?
Lara Soft says
You can also get salmonella from chicken you idiot, and what are these
other so called diseases that plants give you? Regardless, they can’t be
worse than a disease that fucks up your CNS.
FuzzyMule Bawlz says
Hush
Haizrul Ashraf says
Can somebody start a Zombie appoclypes?
Starrk says
It was also on the news, if I recall correctly. Like one of those “possible
e. coli contamination safety recall”.
cruelfunkwallet says
sounds like rabies
Draklor Navar says
Mcdonalds…
Elinore Alms says
One time this chick from a cow farm came into my cooking class and fed us a
bunch of bs about how all the cows are happy sitting in their shit pens and
if they have mad cow disease it won’t affect us, and she gave us a bunch of
propaganda, etc… My teacher let her do this presentation because she gave
us free meat.
Sky Bell says
1:17 Dat ass doe… xD
swag master says
I learned that can turn you into a zombie
JP Miller says
MOOOO
MrFILIPEGDS says
The music in this video doesnt match theme.
And those assholes saying crap like ”mcdonalds” and ”moo” should be
killed right away
Sierra McCall says
Thanks…..now im vegetarian :(
Mr. Moostachio says
Anyone get brought here by ssundee?
Henry Rights says
prion disease is awful and scary
Dylan Cole says
What sense does it make to feed cows with cows? I get that it’s cheaper for
the rancher, but seriously?
Terry Singeltary says
O.05: Transmission of prions to primates after extended silent incubation
periods: Implications for BSE and scrapie risk assessment in human
populations
Emmanuel Comoy, Jacqueline Mikol, Val erie Durand, Sophie Luccantoni,
Evelyne Correia, Nathalie Lescoutra, Capucine Dehen, and Jean-Philippe
Deslys Atomic Energy Commission; Fontenay-aux-Roses, France
Prion diseases (PD) are the unique neurodegenerative proteinopathies
reputed to be transmissible under field conditions since decades. The
transmission of Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) to humans evidenced
that an animal PD might be zoonotic under appropriate conditions.
Contrarily, in the absence of obvious (epidemiological or experimental)
elements supporting a transmission or genetic predispositions, PD, like the
other proteinopathies, are reputed to occur spontaneously (atpical animal
prion strains, sporadic CJD summing 80% of human prion cases). Non-human
primate models provided the first evidences supporting the transmissibiity
of human prion strains and the zoonotic potential of BSE. Among them,
cynomolgus macaques brought major information for BSE risk assessment for
human health (Chen, 2014), according to their phylogenetic proximity to
humans and extended lifetime. We used this model to assess the zoonotic
potential of other animal PD from bovine, ovine and cervid origins even
after very long silent incubation periods. We recently observed the direct
transmission of a natural classical scrapie isolate to macaque after a
10-year silent incubation period, with features similar to some reported
for human cases of sporadic CJD, albeit requiring fourfold longe incubation
than BSE. Scrapie, as recently evoked in humanized mice (Cassard, 2014), is
the third potentially zoonotic PD (with BSE and L-type BSE), ***thus
questioning the origin of human sporadic cases. We will present an updated
panorama of our different transmission studies and discuss the implications
of such extended incubation periods on risk assessment of animal PD for
human health.
===============
***thus questioning the origin of human sporadic cases…TSS
===============
https://prion2015.files.wordpress.com/2015/05/prion2015abstracts.pdf
Saturday, May 30, 2015
PRION 2015 ORAL AND POSTER CONGRESSIONAL ABSTRACTS
http://transmissiblespongiformencephalopathy.blogspot.com/2015/05/prion-2015-oral-and-poster.html
LATE-BREAKING ABSTRACTS
O18
Zoonotic Potential of CWD Prions
Liuting Qing1, Ignazio Cali1,2, Jue Yuan1, Shenghai Huang3, Diane Kofskey1,
Pierluigi Gambetti1, Wenquan Zou1, Qingzhong Kong1 1Case Western Reserve
University, Cleveland, Ohio, USA, 2Second University of Naples, Naples,
Italy, 3Encore Health Resources, Houston, Texas, USA
Chronic wasting disease (CWD) is a widespread and expanding prion disease
in free-ranging and captive cervid species in North America. The zoonotic
potential of CWD prions is a serious public health concern. Current
literature generated with in vitro methods and in vivo animal models
(transgenic mice, macaques and squirrel monkeys) reports conflicting
results. The susceptibility of human CNS and peripheral organs to CWD
prions remains largely unresolved. In our earlier bioassay experiments
using several humanized transgenic mouse lines, we detected
protease-resistant PrPSc in the spleen of two out of 140 mice that were
intracerebrally inoculated with natural CWD isolates, but PrPSc was not
detected in the brain of the same mice. Secondary passages with such
PrPSc-positive CWD-inoculated humanized mouse spleen tissues led to
efficient prion transmission with clear clinical and pathological signs in
both humanized and cervidized transgenic mice. Furthermore, a recent
bioassay with natural CWD isolates in a new humanized transgenic mouse line
led to clinical prion infection in 2 out of 20 mice. These results indicate
that the CWD prion has the potential to infect human CNS and peripheral
lymphoid tissues and that there might be asymptomatic human carriers of CWD
infection.
==================
***These results indicate that the CWD prion has the potential to infect
human CNS and peripheral lymphoid tissues and that there might be
asymptomatic human carriers of CWD infection.***
==================
https://prion2015.files.wordpress.com/2015/05/programguide1.pdf
I strenuously once again urge the FDA and its industry constituents, to
make it MANDATORY that all ruminant feed be banned to all ruminants, and
this should include all cervids as soon as possible for the following
reasons…
======
In the USA, under the Food and Drug Administrations BSE Feed Regulation (21
CFR 589.2000) most material (exceptions include milk, tallow, and gelatin)
from deer and elk is prohibited for use in feed for ruminant animals. With
regards to feed for non-ruminant animals, under FDA law, CWD positive deer
may not be used for any animal feed or feed ingredients. For elk and deer
considered at high risk for CWD, the FDA recommends that these animals do
not enter the animal feed system.
***However, this recommendation is guidance and not a requirement by law.
======
31 Jan 2015 at 20:14 GMT
*** Ruminant feed ban for cervids in the United States? ***
31 Jan 2015 at 20:14 GMT
http://www.plosone.org/annotation/listThread.action?root=85351
Tuesday, June 23, 2015
Report on the monitoring and testing of ruminants for the presence of
transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (TSEs) in the EU in 2013 Final
version 18 May 2015
http://transmissiblespongiformencephalopathy.blogspot.com/2015/06/report-on-monitoring-and-testing-of.html
Sunday, July 12, 2015
Insights into CWD and BSE species barriers using real-time conversion
http://transmissiblespongiformencephalopathy.blogspot.com/2015/07/insights-into-cwd-and-bse-species.html