US lifts French beef MAD COW BSE
import embargo, France says… LOL!
January 14, 2017
US lifts French beef import embargo, France says
US authorities have lifted an embargo on French beef imports after
19 years, the French agriculture ministry said Friday.
France is the fourth EU country to have its beef re-admitted to
the US market after a 1998 ban imposed because of fears over bovine spongiform
encephalopathy (BSE), also known as mad cow disease.
The others are Ireland, Lithuania and the Netherlands.
The EU Commission welcomed the move, calling it "excellent
news for French producers". It was also an illustration that efforts to
eradicate BSE in the EU had borne fruit, it said in a statement.
The French ministry warned, however, that administrative hurdles
meant it could take time for beef exports to the US to resume.
"We are pleased with this first step, but this doesn't mean
that exports will start tomorrow," the ministry said.
>>> US lifts French beef import embargo, France says The
EU Commission welcomed the move, calling it "excellent news for French
producers". It was also an illustration that efforts to eradicate BSE in
the EU had borne fruit, it said in a statement. <<<
LOL! THE MAD COW FOLLIES CONTINUE, THANKS TO THE USDA AND THE
OIE $$$
FRANCE stopped testing for mad cow disease because of an unusual
outbreak of atypical MAD COW DISEASE.
THE OIE BSE MRR POLICY IS NOTHING MORE THAN A LEGAL TOOL TO TRADE
TSE PRION AKA MAD COW TYPE DISEASE GLOBALLY, IT'S ALL ABOUT MONEY AND TRADE
HUMAN LIFE IS HINDSIGHT OR AN AFTER THOUGHT $$$
Thursday, March 24, 2016
FRANCE CONFIRMS BOVINE SPONGIFORM ENCEPHALOPATHY BSE MAD COW (ESB)
chez une vache dans les Ardennes
MONDAY, MAY 2, 2016
France Confirms Case of Classical Mad Cow Disease BSE
BSE identified in France
*** France stops BSE testing for Mad Cow Disease
***atypical spontaneous
BSE in France LOL***
SPONTANEOUS ATYPICAL BOVINE SPONGIFORM ENCEPHALOPATHY
***Moreover, sporadic disease has never been observed in breeding
colonies or primate research laboratories, most notably among hundreds of
animals over several decades of study at the National Institutes of Health25,
and in nearly twenty older animals continuously housed in our own facility.***
FRANCE STOPS TESTING FOR
MAD COW DISEASE BSE, and here’s why, to many spontaneous events of mad cow
disease $$$
spontaneous atypical BSE
???
if that's the case, then
France is having one hell of an epidemic of atypical BSE, probably why they
stopped testing for BSE, problem solved $$$
As of December 2011,
around 60 atypical BSE cases have currently been reported in 13 countries, ***
with over one third in France.
http://www.biomedcentral.com/1746-6148/8/74
so 20 cases of atypical
BSE in France, compared to the remaining 40 cases in the remaining 12
Countries, divided by the remaining 12 Countries, about 3+ cases per country,
besides Frances 20 cases. you cannot explain this away with any spontaneous
BSe. ...TSS
If you Compare France to
other Countries with atypical BSE, in my opinion, you cannot explain this with
‘spontaneous’.
Table 1: Number of
Atypical BSE cases reported by EU Member States in the period 2001–2014 by
country and by type (L- and H-BSE) (extracted from EU BSE databases on 1 July
2014). By 2015, these data might be more comprehensive following a request from
the European Commission to Member States for re-testing and retrospective
classification of all positive bovine isolates in the EU in the years 2003–2009
BSE type
Country 2001 2002 2003
2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013(a) 2014(a) Total
H-BSE Austria 1 1
France(b) 1 2 3 1 2 2 2
2 15
Germany 1 1 2
Ireland 1 1 2 1 5
The Netherlands 1 1
Poland 1 1 2
Portugal 1 1
Spain 1 1 2
Sweden 1 1
United Kingdom 1 1 1 1 1
5
Total 2 3 3 1 1 2 2 2 4
4 5 1 4 1 35
L-BSE Austria 1 1 2
Denmark 1 1
*** France(b) 1 1 1 1 2 1 3 2 1 1 14
Germany 1 1 2
Italy 1 1 1 1 1 5
The Netherlands 1 1 1 3
Poland 1 2 2 1 2 1 2 1
12
Spain 2 2
United Kingdom 1 1 1 1 4
Total 0 5 3 4 3 3 6 3 3
4 3 6 1 1 45
Total Atypical cases (H
+ L)
2 8 6 5 4 5 8 5 7 8 8 7
5 2 80
(a): Data for 2013-2014
are incomplete and may not include all cases/countries reported.
(b): France has
performed extensive retrospective testing to classify BSE cases, which is
probably the explanation for the higher number of Atypical BSE cases reported
in this country.
The number of Atypical
BSE cases detected in countries that have already identified them seems to be
similar from year to year. In France, a retrospective study of all TSE-positive
cattle identified through the compulsory EU surveillance between 2001 and 2007
indicated that the prevalence of H-BSE and L-BSE was 0.35 and 0.41 cases per
million adult cattle tested, respectively, which increased to 1.9 and 1.7 cases
per million, respectively, in tested animals over eight years old (Biacabe et
al., 2008). No comprehensive study on the prevalence of Atypical BSE cases has
yet been carried out in other EU Member States. All cases of Atypical BSE
reported in the EU BSE databases have been identified by active surveillance
testing (59 % in fallen stock, 38 % in healthy slaughtered cattle and 4 % in
emergency slaughtered cattle). Cases were reported in animals over eight years
of age, with the exception of two cases (one H-BSE and one L-BSE) detected in
Spain in 2011/2012. One additional case of H-BSE was detected in Switzerland in
2012 in a cow born in Germany in 2005 (Guldimann et al., 2012).
Wednesday, July 15, 2015
Additional BSE TSE prion
testing detects pathologic lesion in unusual brain location and PrPsc by PMCA
only, how many cases have we missed?
***however in 1 C-type
challenged animal, Prion 2015 Poster Abstracts S67 PrPsc was not detected using
rapid tests for BSE.
***Subsequent testing
resulted in the detection of pathologic lesion in unusual brain location and
PrPsc detection by PMCA only.
*** IBNC Tauopathy or
TSE Prion disease, it appears, no one is sure ***
Posted by Terry S.
Singeltary Sr. on 03 Jul 2015 at 16:53 GMT
*** Singeltary reply ;
Molecular, Biochemical and Genetic Characteristics of BSE in Canada Singeltary
reply ;
*** It also suggests a
similar cause or source for atypical BSE in these countries. ***
Discussion: The C, L and
H type BSE cases in Canada exhibit molecular characteristics similar to those
described for classical and atypical BSE cases from Europe and Japan.
*** This supports the
theory that the importation of BSE contaminated feedstuff is the source of
C-type BSE in Canada.
*** It also suggests a
similar cause or source for atypical BSE in these countries. ***
see page 176 of 201
pages...tss
Evidence That
Transmissible Mink Encephalopathy Results from Feeding Infected Cattle
Over the next 8-10
weeks, approximately 40% of all the adult mink on the farm died from TME.
snip...
The rancher was a ''dead
stock'' feeder using mostly (>95%) downer or dead dairy cattle...
***our findings suggest
that possible transmission risk of H-type BSE to sheep and human. Bioassay will
be required to determine whether the PMCA products are infectious to these
animals.
P.86: Estimating the
risk of transmission of BSE and scrapie to ruminants and humans by protein
misfolding cyclic amplification
Morikazu Imamura, Naoko
Tabeta, Yoshifumi Iwamaru, and Yuichi Murayama
National Institute of
Animal Health; Tsukuba, Japan
To assess the risk of
the transmission of ruminant prions to ruminants and humans at the molecular
level, we investigated the ability of abnormal prion protein (PrPSc) of typical
and atypical BSEs (L-type and H-type) and typical scrapie to convert normal prion
protein (PrPC) from bovine, ovine, and human to proteinase K-resistant
PrPSc-like form (PrPres) using serial protein misfolding cyclic amplification
(PMCA).
Six rounds of serial
PMCA was performed using 10% brain homogenates from transgenic mice expressing
bovine, ovine or human PrPC in combination with PrPSc seed from typical and
atypical BSE- or typical scrapie-infected brain homogenates from native host
species. In the conventional PMCA, the conversion of PrPC to PrPres was
observed only when the species of PrPC source and PrPSc seed matched. However,
in the PMCA with supplements (digitonin, synthetic polyA and heparin), both
bovine and ovine PrPC were converted by PrPSc from all tested prion strains. On
the other hand, human PrPC was converted by PrPSc from typical and H-type BSE
in this PMCA condition.
Although these results
were not compatible with the previous reports describing the lack of
transmissibility of H-type BSE to ovine and human transgenic mice, our findings
suggest that possible transmission risk of H-type BSE to sheep and human.
Bioassay will be required to determine whether the PMCA products are infectious
to these animals.
P.170: Potential
detection of oral transmission of H type atypical BSE in cattle using in vitro conversion
***P.170: Potential
detection of oral transmission of H type atypical BSE in cattle using in vitro
conversion
Sandor Dudas, John G
Gray, Renee Clark, and Stefanie Czub Canadian Food Inspection Agency;
Lethbridge, AB Canada
Keywords: Atypical BSE,
oral transmission, RT-QuIC
The detection of bovine
spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) has had a significant negative impact on the
cattle industry worldwide. In response, governments took actions to prevent
transmission and additional threats to animal health and food safety. While
these measures seem to be effective for controlling classical BSE, the more
recently discovered atypical BSE has presented a new challenge. To generate
data for risk assessment and control measures, we have challenged cattle orally
with atypical BSE to determine transmissibility and mis-folded prion (PrPSc)
tissue distribution. Upon presentation of clinical symptoms, animals were
euthanized and tested for characteristic histopathological changes as well as
PrPSc deposition.
The H-type challenged
animal displayed vacuolation exclusively in rostral brain areas but the L-type
challenged animal showed no evidence thereof. To our surprise, neither of the
animals euthanized, which were displaying clinical signs indicative of BSE,
showed conclusive mis-folded prion accumulation in the brain or gut using
standard molecular or immunohistochemical assays. To confirm presence or
absence of prion infectivity, we employed an optimized real-time quaking
induced conversion (RT-QuIC) assay developed at the Rocky Mountain Laboratory,
Hamilton, USA.
Detection of PrPSc was
unsuccessful for brain samples tests from the orally inoculated L type animal
using the RT-QuIC. It is possible that these negative results were related to
the tissue sampling locations or that type specific optimization is needed to
detect PrPSc in this animal. We were however able to consistently detect the
presence of mis-folded prions in the brain of the H-type inoculated animal.
Considering the negative and inconclusive results with other PrPSc detection
methods, positive results using the optimized RT-QuIC suggests the method is
extremely sensitive for H-type BSE detection. This may be evidence of the first
successful oral transmission of H type atypical BSE in cattle and additional
investigation of samples from these animals are ongoing.
Evidence That
Transmissible Mink Encephalopathy Results from Feeding Infected Cattle
Over the next 8-10
weeks, approximately 40% of all the adult mink on the farm died from TME.
snip...
The rancher was a ''dead
stock'' feeder using mostly (>95%) downer or dead dairy cattle...
In Confidence -
Perceptions of unconventional slow virus diseases of animals in the USA -
APRIL-MAY 1989 - G A H Wells
3. Prof. A. Robertson
gave a brief account of BSE. The US approach was to accord it a very low
profile indeed. Dr. A Thiermann showed the picture in the ''Independent'' with
cattle being incinerated and thought this was a fanatical incident to be
avoided in the US at all costs. ...
The occurrence of CWD
must be viewed against the contest of the locations in which it occurred. It
was an incidental and unwelcome complication of the respective wildlife
research programmes. Despite it’s subsequent recognition as a new disease of
cervids, therefore justifying direct investigation, no specific research
funding was forthcoming. The USDA veiwed it as a wildlife problem and
consequently not their province! ...page 26.
*** Spraker suggested an
interesting explanation for the occurrence of CWD. The deer pens at the Foot
Hills Campus were built some 30-40 years ago by a Dr. Bob Davis. At or abut
that time, allegedly, some scrapie work was conducted at this site. When deer
were introduced to the pens they occupied ground that had previously been
occupied by sheep.
SPONTANEOUS ATYPICAL
BOVINE SPONGIFORM ENCEPHALOPATHY
***Moreover, sporadic
disease has never been observed in breeding colonies or primate research
laboratories, most notably among hundreds of animals over several decades of
study at the National Institutes of Health25, and in nearly twenty older
animals continuously housed in our own facility.***
Primate Biol., 3, 47–50,
2016 www.primate-biol.net/3/47/2016/ doi:10.5194/pb-3-47-2016
© Author(s) 2016. CC
Attribution 3.0 License.
Prions
Walter Bodemer German
Primate Center, Kellnerweg 4, 37077 Göttingen, Germany Correspondence to:
Walter Bodemer (wbodemer@dpz.eu)
Received: 15 June 2016 –
Revised: 24 August 2016 – Accepted: 30 August 2016 – Published: 7 September
2016
SNIP...
3 Conclusion
Most importantly, early
signs of an altered circadian rhythm, sleep–wake cycle, and activity and body
temperature were recorded in prion-infected animals. This experimental approach
would have never been feasible in studies with human CJD cases. After 4–6 years
animals developed clinical symptoms highly similar to those typical for CJD.
Clinicians confirmed how close the animal model and the human disease matched.
Non-neuronal tissue like cardiac muscle and peripheral blood with abnormal,
disease-related prion protein were detected in rhesus monkey tissues.
Molecular changes in RNA
from repetitive Alu and BC200 DNA elements were identified and found to be
targets of epigenetic editing mechanisms active in prion disease. To conclude,
our results with the rhesus monkey model for prion disease proved to be a valid
model and increased our knowledge of pathogenic processes that are distinctive
to prion disease.
SEE FULL TEXT ;
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, Valerie 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 long 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***
***our findings
suggest that possible transmission risk of H-type BSE to sheep and human.
Bioassay will be required to determine whether the PMCA products are infectious
to these animals.
Saturday, April 23, 2016
PRION 2016 TOKYO
Saturday, April 23, 2016
SCRAPIE WS-01:
Prion diseases in animals and zoonotic potential 2016
Prion. 10:S15-S21.
2016 ISSN: 1933-6896 printl 1933-690X online
Taylor & Francis
Prion 2016 Animal Prion
Disease Workshop Abstracts
WS-01: Prion diseases in
animals and zoonotic potential
Juan Maria Torres a,
Olivier Andreoletti b, J uan-Carlos Espinosa a. Vincent Beringue c. Patricia
Aguilar a,
Natalia Fernandez-Borges
a. and Alba Marin-Moreno a
"Centro de
Investigacion en Sanidad Animal ( CISA-INIA ). Valdeolmos, Madrid. Spain; b UMR
INRA -ENVT 1225 Interactions Holes Agents Pathogenes. ENVT. Toulouse. France:
"UR892. Virologie lmmunologie MolécuIaires, Jouy-en-Josas. France
Dietary exposure to
bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) contaminated bovine tissues is
considered as the origin of variant Creutzfeldt Jakob (vCJD) disease in human.
To date, BSE agent is the only recognized zoonotic prion. Despite the variety
of Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathy (TSE) agents that have been
circulating for centuries in farmed ruminants there is no apparent
epidemiological link between exposure to ruminant products and the occurrence
of other form of TSE in human like sporadic Creutzfeldt Jakob Disease (sCJD).
However, the zoonotic potential of the diversity of circulating TSE agents has
never been systematically assessed. The major issue in experimental assessment
of TSEs zoonotic potential lies in the modeling of the ‘species barrier‘, the
biological phenomenon that limits TSE agents’ propagation from a species to
another. In the last decade, mice genetically engineered to express normal
forms of the human prion protein has proved essential in studying human prions
pathogenesis and modeling the capacity of TSEs to cross the human species
barrier.
To assess the
zoonotic potential of prions circulating in farmed ruminants, we study their
transmission ability in transgenic mice expressing human PrPC (HuPrP-Tg). Two
lines of mice expressing different forms of the human PrPC (129Met or 129Val) are
used to determine the role of the Met129Val dimorphism in
susceptibility/resistance to the different agents.
These transmission
experiments confirm the ability of BSE prions to propagate in 129M- HuPrP-Tg
mice and demonstrate that Met129 homozygotes may be susceptible to BSE in sheep
or goat to a greater degree than the BSE agent in cattle and that these agents
can convey molecular properties and neuropathological indistinguishable from
vCJD. However homozygous 129V mice are resistant to all tested BSE derived
prions independently of the originating species suggesting a higher
transmission barrier for 129V-PrP variant.
Transmission data
also revealed that several scrapie prions propagate in HuPrP-Tg mice with
ef?ciency comparable to that of cattle BSE. While the ef?ciency of transmission
at primary passage was low, subsequent passages resulted in a highly virulent
prion disease in both Met129 and Val129 mice. Transmission of the different
scrapie isolates in these mice leads to the emergence of prion strain phenotypes
that showed similar characteristics to those displayed by MM1 or VV2 sCJD
prion. These results demonstrate that scrapie prions have a zoonotic potential
and raise new questions about the possible link between animal and human
prions.
why do we not want to do
TSE transmission studies on chimpanzees $
5. A positive result
from a chimpanzee challenged severly would likely create alarm in some circles
even if the result could not be interpreted for man. I have a view that all
these agents could be transmitted provided a large enough dose by appropriate
routes was given and the animals kept long enough. Until the mechanisms of the
species barrier are more clearly understood it might be best to retain that
hypothesis.
snip...
R. BRADLEY
Title: Transmission of
scrapie prions to primate after an extended silent incubation
period)
*** In complement to the
recent demonstration that humanized mice are susceptible to scrapie, we report
here the first observation of direct transmission of a natural classical
scrapie isolate to a macaque after a 10-year incubation period. Neuropathologic
examination revealed all of the features of a prion disease: spongiform change,
neuronal loss, and accumulation of PrPres throughout the CNS.
*** This
observation strengthens the questioning of the harmlessness of scrapie to
humans, at a time when protective measures for human and animal health are
being dismantled and reduced as c-BSE is considered controlled and being
eradicated.
*** Our results
underscore the importance of precautionary and protective measures and the
necessity for long-term experimental transmission studies to assess the
zoonotic potential of other animal prion strains.
SCRAPIE WS-01: Prion
diseases in animals and zoonotic potential 2016
Prion. 10:S15-S21. 2016
ISSN: 1933-6896 printl 1933-690X online
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Transmissible mink
encephalopathy - review of the etiology
http://transmissible-mink-encephalopathy.blogspot.com/2009/07/transmissible-mink-encephalopathy.html
Saturday, December 01,
2007
Phenotypic Similarity of
Transmissible Mink Encephalopathy in Cattle and L-type Bovine Spongiform
Encephalopathy in a Mouse Model
Sunday, December 10,
2006
Transmissible Mink
Encephalopathy TME
Saturday, June 25, 2011
Transmissibility of BSE-L
and Cattle-Adapted TME Prion Strain to Cynomolgus Macaque
"BSE-L in North
America may have existed for decades"
Wednesday, April 25,
2012
4th MAD COW DISEASE
U.S.A. CALIFORNIA ATYPICAL L-TYPE BSE 2012
Thursday, October 22,
2015
Former Ag Secretary Ann
Veneman talks women in agriculture and we talk mad cow disease USDA and what
really happened
Sunday, December 15,
2013
FDA PART 589 --
SUBSTANCES PROHIBITED FROM USE IN ANIMAL FOOD OR FEED VIOLATIONS OFFICIAL
ACTION INDICATED OAI UPDATE DECEMBER 2013 UPDATE
Thursday, July 24, 2014
Protocol for further
laboratory investigations into the distribution of infectivity of Atypical BSE
SCIENTIFIC REPORT OF EFSA
*** Monday, January 09, 2017 ***
*** Oral Transmission of L-Type Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy
Agent among Cattle ***
CDC Volume 23, Number 2—February 2017
Consumption of
L-BSE–contaminated feed may pose a risk for oral transmission of the disease
agent to cattle.
ONE DECADE POST MAD COW
FEED BAN OF AUGUST 1997...2007
10,000,000 POUNDS REASON
Products manufactured from bulk feed containing blood meal that was cross
contaminated with prohibited meat and bone meal and the labeling did not bear
cautionary BSE statement.
2007
Date: March 21, 2007 at
2:27 pm PST
RECALLS AND FIELD
CORRECTIONS: VETERINARY MEDICINES -- CLASS II PRODUCT
Bulk cattle feed made
with recalled Darling's 85% Blood Meal, Flash Dried, Recall # V-024-2007 CODE
Cattle feed delivered between 01/12/2007 and 01/26/2007 RECALLING
FIRM/MANUFACTURER Pfeiffer, Arno, Inc, Greenbush,
WI. by conversation on
February 5, 2007.
Firm initiated recall is
ongoing.
REASON Blood meal used
to make cattle feed was recalled because it was cross- contaminated with
prohibited bovine meat and bone meal that had been manufactured on common
equipment and labeling did not bear cautionary BSE statement.
VOLUME OF PRODUCT IN
COMMERCE 42,090 lbs. DISTRIBUTION WI
___________________________________
PRODUCT Custom dairy
premix products: MNM ALL PURPOSE Pellet, HILLSIDE/CDL Prot- Buffer Meal, LEE,
M.-CLOSE UP PX Pellet, HIGH DESERT/ GHC LACT Meal, TATARKA, M CUST PROT Meal,
SUNRIDGE/CDL PROTEIN Blend, LOURENZO, K PVM DAIRY Meal, DOUBLE B DAIRY/GHC LAC Mineral,
WEST PIONT/GHC CLOSEUP Mineral, WEST POINT/GHC LACT Meal, JENKS, J/COMPASS
PROTEIN Meal, COPPINI - 8# SPECIAL DAIRY Mix, GULICK, L-LACT Meal (Bulk),
TRIPLE J - PROTEIN/LACTATION, ROCK CREEK/GHC MILK Mineral, BETTENCOURT/GHC
S.SIDE MK-MN, BETTENCOURT #1/GHC MILK MINR, V&C DAIRY/GHC LACT Meal,
VEENSTRA, F/GHC LACT Meal, SMUTNY, A- BYPASS ML W/SMARTA, Recall # V-025-2007
CODE The firm does not
utilize a code - only shipping documentation with commodity and weights
identified.
RECALLING FIRM/MANUFACTURER
Rangen, Inc, Buhl, ID, by letters on February 13 and 14, 2007.
Firm initiated recall is
complete.
REASON Products
manufactured from bulk feed containing blood meal that was cross contaminated
with prohibited meat and bone meal and the labeling did not bear cautionary BSE
statement.
VOLUME OF PRODUCT IN
COMMERCE 9,997,976 lbs. DISTRIBUTION ID and NV
END OF ENFORCEMENT
REPORT FOR MARCH 21, 2007
Tuesday, December 23,
2014
FDA PART 589 --
SUBSTANCES PROHIBITED FROM USE IN ANIMAL FOOD OR FEED VIOLATIONS OFFICIAL
ACTION INDICATED OAI UPDATE DECEMBER 2014 BSE TSE PRION
Sunday, December 15,
2013
FDA PART 589 --
SUBSTANCES PROHIBITED FROM USE IN ANIMAL FOOD OR FEED VIOLATIONS OFFICIAL
ACTION INDICATED OIA UPDATE DECEMBER 2013 UPDATE
Tuesday, September 06,
2016
A comparison of
classical and H-type bovine spongiform encephalopathy associated with E211K
prion protein polymorphism in wild type and EK211 cattle following intracranial
inoculation
Saturday, July 23, 2016
BOVINE SPONGIFORM
ENCEPHALOPATHY BSE TSE PRION SURVEILLANCE, TESTING, AND SRM REMOVAL UNITED
STATE OF AMERICA UPDATE JULY 2016
Sunday, June 14, 2015
Larry’s Custom Meats Inc. Recalls Beef Tongue Products That May
Contain Specified Risk Materials BSE TSE Prion
http://madcowusda.blogspot.com/2015/06/larrys-custom-meats-inc-recalls-beef.html
Tuesday, July 26, 2016
Atypical Bovine
Spongiform Encephalopathy BSE TSE Prion UPDATE JULY 2016
Monday, June 20, 2016
Specified Risk Materials
SRMs BSE TSE Prion Program
Wednesday, May 25, 2016
USDA APHIS National
Scrapie TSE Prion Eradication Program April 2016 Monthly Report Prion 2016
Tokyo Update
Wednesday, December 21,
2016
TRANSMISSION,
DIFFERENTIATION, AND PATHOBIOLOGY OF TRANSMISSIBLE SPONGIFORM ENCEPHALOPATHIES
2016 ANNUAL REPORT ARS RESEARCH
Thursday, December 08,
2016
USDA APHIS National
Scrapie Eradication Program October 2016 Monthly Report Fiscal Year 2017
atypical NOR-98 Scrapie
Tuesday, August 9, 2016
Concurrence with OIE
Risk Designations for Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy [Docket No.
APHIS-2015-0055]
BILLING CODE: 3410-34-P
DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service
MONDAY, JANUARY 4, 2016
Long live the OIE, or time to close the doors on a failed
entity?
Long live the OIE, or time to close
the doors on a failed entity?
IN A NUT SHELL ;
(Adopted by the International
Committee of the OIE on 23 May 2006)
11. Information published by the OIE
is derived from appropriate declarations made by the official Veterinary
Services of Member Countries. The OIE is not responsible for inaccurate
publication of country disease status based on inaccurate information or
changes in epidemiological status or other significant events that were not
promptly reported to the Central Bureau,
snip...see ;
Sunday, October 18, 2015
World Organisation for Animal Health
(OIE) and the Institut Pasteur Cooperating on animal disease and zoonosis
research
Thursday, December 17, 2015
Annual report of the Scientific
Network on BSE-TSE 2015 EFSA-Q-2015-00738 10 December 2015
From: TSS (216-119-138-129.ipset18.wt.net)
Subject: FRANCE reveals new mad cow tally and it' NOT good...
Date: December 5, 2000 at 12:52 pm PST
Tuesday, 5 December, 2000, 11:32 GMT France reveals new mad cow
tally
The BSE crisis is hitting more and more farmers France has
revealed that four new cases of mad cow disease have been detected, taking the
year's total to more than four times the 1999 figure.
Officials at the agriculture ministry said 125 cows suffering from
the disease had now been found on farms across France since January.
Two new cases of the human form of the disease, vCJD, were also
disclosed by health officials in the UK, taking the number to 87.
The news came a day after European agriculture ministers agreed
tough new measures aimed at restoring public confidence in beef in Europe.
After a nine-hour meeting, the ministers banned all cattle over 30
months old from entering the food chain, unless individually tested and proved
free of BSE.
That means the slaughter of thousands of cattle until adequate BSE
tests are introduced next year.
The ministers also approved a six-month ban on all meat and
bonemeal in animal feed.
Some BSE-free Scandinavian countries say that is over the top.
The Finnish delegation said the ban was unjustified on scientific
and moral grounds.
But German Agriculture Minister Karl-Heinz Funke said the ban was
too short.
Slaughtered
"It's not enough that the EU ban on meat-based feeds will
initially last for six months," Mr Funke told WDR 2 radio.
Due to take effect in January, the ban does not include fishmeal
used in pig and poultry feed, officials say.
The ban on cattle over 30 months old entering the food chain means
that cattle can continue to be traded as usual, but once slaughtered the
carcasses must be tested for BSE and cleared as fit for human consumption.
Failure will mean the carcasses being sent for incineration.
Panic
The cost of testing will be split between national authorities and
Brussels, with the Commission picking up 70% of the bill.
The new scheme also involves extending the list of "specified
risk materials" currently banned from human consumption - the brains,
spinal cords and spleens of cattle - to include the whole intestine.
The ban, expected to cost $1.7bn, was approved by all 15
ministers.
The emergency Brussels meeting was in the wake of panic in France
and Germany where BSE is on the increase.
National governments will get no EU help to pay for the recall and
destruction of the meat and bonemeal in circulation.
November 21, 2000
A Mad Cow Is Just the Half of It
By DIANE JOHNSON
ARIS — The rage and dismay seizing France since tons of beef
potentially infected with mad cow disease were found to have been sold in some
supermarkets seems both warranted and excessive, like most public and political
matters that involve national beliefs and betrayals of good faith.
What the French have learned is indeed alarming: that many
thousands of tons of bone meal — the repulsive feed made of ground-up animals —
from possibly infected English cattle were imported into France for more than
two years after France embargoed British beef. It was fed to French chickens,
pigs and fish, and often, to French cows. Three cases of the new variant of
Creutzfeldt-Jakob's disease, the human form of mad cow disease, have been found
in France; around 100 infected cows and a small percentage of seemingly healthy
animals have tested positive.
France has several articles of faith that are being profoundly
shaken, and it is this threat to comfortable assumptions, perhaps more than the
disease itself, that is fueling the indignation in France.
One such assumption is that this sort of thing can be controlled.
France, like many other European countries, thought that a ban on English beef
would prevent the dreaded, if uncommon, disease from slipping into the country.
This might have worked, were it not for mistakes and failings of various usual
kinds — greed, lax enforcement, inability on the part of farmers to believe it
could happen. To find out that the system was allowing an agent of transmission
to be sold here and fed to French cattle — not to mention to other animals —
has caused understandable panic, compounded by anger at officials and almost
reflex French Anglophobia.
To date, a French person has a much greater chance of dying of
smoking, that widely tolerated health threat, than of this exotic and rare
disease. But things to do with nourishment have a central hold on any national
psyche, and this is especially so in France, where food has a national identity
and a focal place in the culture. The idea of French cuisine is based on
sentimental ideas of French agriculture, fresh local produce, fine ingredients
and so on.
The French also believe firmly that they are protected by a
vigilant government. Certainly the government tends to protect the French state
of mind. Maps of Europe after Chernobyl, depicting radiation levels in all
adjacent countries, showed fallout miraculously stopping at the French border.
In the current crisis, the French are shocked to find that French incompetence
as much as English perfidy is to blame, and this has compounded the
understandable fury with chagrin.
Since the discovery of the disease in France, indignation has
swirled around all public officials. Beef has been withdrawn from the menus of
schools and day care centers, while confusion about the science still reigns.
For instance, many in France have not distinguished between
"contaminated" and "genetically modified," foodstuffs, with
one paper predicting darkly that the English, already feeding their animals
with soybeans from America, are only substituting plague for cholera, implying
the French should not make the same mistake.
Do we dare eat beef? the French are asking. People who have long
followed French food production have remarked that this should serve as a
wake-up call to a nation that is rapidly losing its tradition of excellent
local products to factory farming and freeze-dried imports. Meantime, the
Nouvel Observateur assessment about beef is: only from a "boucher
serieux," a serious butcher who knows where the meat came from. But how
many people have access to a serious butcher, even in France? At the very least
it must now be clear to the French that in stopping the spread of this
contaminant, pride and tradition do not suffice.
Diane Johnson is author, most recently, of "Le Mariage."
From: TSS (216-119-138-129.ipset18.wt.net)
Subject: Re: FRANCE reveals new mad cow tally and it' NOT good...
Date: December 5, 2000 at 12:58 pm PST
In Reply to: FRANCE reveals new mad cow tally and it' NOT good...
posted by TSS on December 5, 2000 at 12:52 pm:
December 5, 2000
Europe Takes Toughest Steps to Fight Mad Cow Disease
By SUZANNE DALEY
ARIS, Dec. 4 — Moving to calm growing fears over mad cow disease,
the European Union today voted its most drastic measures yet to try to control
the spread of the fatal illness.
In a special emergency session, the union's agricultural ministers
voted to ban the use of feed laced with animal products, not just for cattle
but for all farm animals, for at least six months.
In addition, all cattle over the age of 30 months are to be
removed from the food chain unless they can be tested to make sure they are
disease free. As testing capacity is limited, this is likely to mean that two
million head of cattle in the union's 15 member countries will be slaughtered.
Both measures are expected to be costly. Union officials estimate
that the feed ban — intended to prevent cattle from eating, even accidentally,
infected animal parts that can transmit the disease — will cost nearly $4
billion a year. The removal of older cattle from the food chain will cost
another $800 million, officials said. Evidence of mad cow disease has never
been found in young cattle.
"The crisis we have to come to grips with is an unusual
one," said Franz Fischler, the European Union's agricultural minister,
after emerging from the nine-hour meeting. "It needs unusual
measures."
The measures come as most European countries have been struggling
with a growing panic among consumers about the safety of beef. Wholesalers in
several countries have reported a drop in sales of nearly 50 percent in the
last few weeks.
The recent panic began in France, where the number of reported
cases of mad cow has increased dramatically this year, in part due to increased
testing. Last year, France counted 31 cases. This year, it already has more
than 110.
But the panic soon spread throughout Europe — especially when
Germany and Spain, which had never reported cases, said two weeks ago that they
too had diseased cows.
Since then, health and agriculture officials have been scrambling
to reassure consumers that everything is being done to protect them. Several
countries have announced new measures of their own, including increased testing
and new bans on beef from France. These bans are to be reviewed by the union's
scientific steering committee to decide whether they are appropriate.
The European Union action tonight was devised to offer a Europe-
wide approach to the problems. In many ways, it mirrors the actions that
Britain took years ago to combat its own epidemic. Britain has recorded more
than 170,000 cases of mad cow, far more than any other European country.
Much about mad cow disease, also known as bovine spongiform
encephalopathy, remains a mystery. But scientists believe that cattle
originally contracted the disease by eating feed made with tissue from sheep
infected with a related neurological ailment, scrapie. Experts believe that the
fatal disease it is caused by aberrant proteins called infectious prions, which
leave the brain with spongelike holes.
More than 80 people have died in Britain and two in France from
the fatal human equivalent, new variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease, which has
been linked to the infected beef. The incubation period is believed to be up to
25 years, and so health officials have warned that the toll may rise sharply.
European Union officials said tonight that the ban on animal parts
in feed won easy approval from a majority of members, though some countries
objected. Officials said Finland, for instance, did not want to apply the ban
because it did not yet have any cases of the disease.
Much of the cost involved in banning the animal parts in the feed
will be for storing and incinerating the three million tons of ground up bones
and intestinal parts that are a natural waste product of Europe's meat industry
and that have until now been used to enhance animal feed.
Some of the feed is used as fuel in cement factories, and there is
some hope that more will be used for that purpose. But much of it may simply
have to be destroyed.
Animal parts have been fed to cows and other farm animals as a
source of protein since World War II. Banning them is likely to have have
serious trade implications for the European Union as farmers will now have to
find a way to replace it. One alternative would be to buy soy meal from the
United States. But the ministers voted at the last minute to exclude fish meal
from the ban, meaning farmers will still be able to feed those products to pigs
and chickens, deflecting some of the potential need to import soy.
From: TSS (216-119-130-159.ipset10.wt.net)
Subject: FRANCE--BSE/CJD 'The Madness Spreads'
Date: November 10, 2000 at 2:11 pm PST
France To Ban Sweetbreads In Anti-Mad Cow Effort Ag Minister Criticizes
Farm Union's Cattle Withdrawal Plan
PARIS, Nov. 10 (Associated Press) -- France plans to ban
sweetbreads for a one-year period as a precautionary measure to fight the
possible human consequences of mad cow disease, Agricultural Ministry officials
said Friday.
The ban is to take effect shortly, said the ministry's special
research mission for bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or mad cow disease.
The decision is based on advice from France's food safety agency,
but does not mean that consumers who have recently eaten the popular product --
made from the cow's thymus gland -- should fear, said the mission.
It concerns cows born after May 1, 1999. Thymuses of cows born
before that date were banned earlier. Cow intestines were banned last month.
The move came amid growing fears that mad cow disease could
endanger France's beef-eaters with the human form of the brain-wasting ailment.
Scientists have linked made cow disease to a variant strand of
Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. Two people in France are known to have died from the
malady -- compared to 81 people in Britain where the beef scare exploded in
1996.
Officials of France's leftist government have warned against what
they call a psychosis among the French that has led to numerous towns banning
beef from school cafeteria menus.
On Friday, Nantes University Hospital Center made known it was
withdrawing beef from its maternity and pediatric units, RTL radio reported.
Agriculture Minister Jean Glavany criticized, in an interview
published Friday, a plan by France's largest farmers' union to withdraw from
the market cows born before July 1996. He said it has "no rational
foundation" in the fight against mad cow disease and serves only to feed
the psychosis.
"If it were a public health measure, I would absolutely
support it," Glavany was quoted as saying in the daily Liberation.
"But it's nothing of the sort."
The farmers' union known as the FNSEA said Tuesday it planned to
withdraw from the market older cows, born before France imposed strict measures
on cattle feed in July 1996 when mad cow disease became a palpable fear among
Europeans because of its spread in Britain.
Glavany conceded that France's leftist coalition government had
underestimated how a rising number of mad cow cases in France would effect
public opinion.
More than 90 cases of mad cow disease have been detected in France
this year, compared to 31 last year.
However, Glavany said the increase is due to special detection
tests being carried out.
Beef prices have plunged at meat markets around France, and one
slaughter house in Quimper, in the eastern Finistere region, which lost 65
percent of its business within a few days, may close its doors next week,
France-Info radio reported.
French Beef Sales Plunge Amid Mad Cow Scare
PARIS, Nov. 10 (Xinhua News Agency) -- Sales of beef plunged by 42
percent on Thursday compared with the previous Thursdays in the food wholesale
market of Rungi near Paris, which is Europe's largest, according to officials
of cattle and food sale unions.
This is the second consecutive day for beef salers to suffer large
losses, as the sales of beef fell by 41 percent on Wednesday amid a mad cow
disease scare in the country and elsewhere in Europe.
The crisis mainly resulted from a halt by several European
countries to buy French beef.
Poland, Hungary and Spain have suspended importing beef from
France, while Russia has decreased its purchase.
Wednesday, December 14,
2016
Diagnosis of Human Prion
Disease Using Real-Time Quaking-Induced Conversion Testing of Olfactory Mucosa
and Cerebrospinal Fluid Samples
*** Transmission of
Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease to a chimpanzee by electrodes contaminated during
neurosurgery ***
Gibbs CJ Jr, Asher DM,
Kobrine A, Amyx HL, Sulima MP, Gajdusek DC. Laboratory of Central Nervous
System Studies, National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, National
Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD 20892.
Stereotactic
multicontact electrodes used to probe the cerebral cortex of a middle aged
woman with progressive dementia were previously implicated in the accidental
transmission of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) to two younger patients. The
diagnoses of CJD have been confirmed for all three cases. More than two years
after their last use in humans, after three cleanings and repeated
sterilisation in ethanol and formaldehyde vapour, the electrodes were implanted
in the cortex of a chimpanzee. Eighteen months later the animal became ill with
CJD. This finding serves to re-emphasise the potential danger posed by reuse of
instruments contaminated with the agents of spongiform encephalopathies, even
after scrupulous attempts to clean them.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=8006664&dopt=Abstract
Diagnosis and Reporting
of Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease
Singeltary, Sr et al.
JAMA.2001; 285: 733-734. Vol. 285 No. 6, February 14, 2001 JAMA
Diagnosis and Reporting
of Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease
To the Editor: In their
Research Letter, Dr Gibbons and colleagues1 reported that the annual US death
rate due to Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) has been stable since 1985. These
estimates, however, are based only on reported cases, and do not include
misdiagnosed or preclinical cases. It seems to me that misdiagnosis alone would
drastically change these figures. An unknown number of persons with a diagnosis
of Alzheimer disease in fact may have CJD, although only a small number of
these patients receive the postmortem examination necessary to make this
diagnosis. Furthermore, only a few states have made CJD reportable. Human and
animal transmissible spongiform encephalopathies should be reportable
nationwide and internationally.
Terry S. Singeltary, Sr
Bacliff, Tex
1. Gibbons RV, Holman
RC, Belay ED, Schonberger LB. Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in the United States:
1979-1998. JAMA. 2000;284:2322-2323.
Terry S. Singeltary Sr.
