Tag Archives: mad cow

Why is contaminated feed still circulating, 15 years later? CFIA says small amount of feed likely cause of Alberta mad cow disease

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Canada’s food safety watchdog says a small amount of leftover contaminated feed was the most plausible cause of mad cow disease discovered last February on a farm near Edmonton.

bse.canadaThe Canadian Food Inspection Agency released a report Monday that says no part of the Black Angus beef cow entered the human food or animal feed systems.

The report says no significant events could be linked to the discovery of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) near Edmonton and no other sick animals were found.

The February case — the 19th in Canada — prompted a few countries to place temporary restrictions on Canadian beef imports.

An investigation report says the cow was born at a nearby farm almost two years after Canada brought in more strict controls on animal feed to prevent BSE. A previous case was diagnosed on the same birth farm in an animal born in 2004.

“No significant events could be linked with this case but the potential for the carry-over of a small amount of residual contaminated feed could not be discounted,” says the report.

Wow: Grass plants can transport infectious prions

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Grass plants can bind, uptake and transport infectious prions, according to researchers at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth). The research was published online in the latest issue of Cell Reports.

prion.plants.may.15Prions are the protein-based infectious agents responsible for a group of diseases called transmissible spongiform encephalopathy, which includes bovine spongiform encephalopathy (mad cow disease) in cattle, scrapie in sheep, variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in humans and chronic wasting disease (CWD) in deer, elk and moose. All are fatal brain diseases with incubation periods that last years.

CWD, first diagnosed in mule deer in Colorado in the late 1960s, has spread across the country into 22 states, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), including the counties of El Paso and Hudspeth in Texas. In northeastern Colorado and southeastern Wyoming, the disease is endemic. Soto’s team sought to find out why.

“There is no proof of transmission from wild animals and plants to humans,” said lead author Claudio Soto, Ph.D., professor of neurology at UTHealth Medical School and director of the UTHealth George and Cynthia W. Mitchell Center for Alzheimer’s Disease and Other Brain Related Illnesses. “But it’s a possibility that needs to be explored and people need to be aware of it. Prions have a long incubation period.”

Soto’s team analyzed the retention of infectious prion protein and infectivity in wheat grass roots and leaves incubated with prion-contaminated brain material and discovered that even highly diluted amounts can bind to the roots and leaves. When the wheat grass was consumed by hamsters, the animals were infected with the disease. The team also learned that infectious prion proteins could be detected in plants exposed to urine and feces from prion-infected hamsters and deer.

Researchers also found that plants can uptake prions from contaminated soil and transport them to different parts of the plant, which can act as a carrier of infectivity. This suggests that plants may play an important role in environmental prion contamination and the horizontal transmission of the disease.

To minimize the risk of exposure to CWD, the CDC recommends that people avoid eating meat from deer and elk that look sick or test positive for CWD. Hunters who field-dress deer in an affected area should wear gloves and minimize handling of the brain and spinal cord tissues.

“This research was done in experimental conditions in the lab,” Soto said of the next step. “We’re moving the research into environmental contamination now.”

First author of the paper, “Grass Plants Bind, Retain, Uptake and Transport Infectious Prions,” is post-doctoral researcher Sandra Pritzkow, Ph.D. Co-authors from UTHealth are Rodrigo Morales, Ph.D.; Fabio Moda, Ph.D.; and Uffaf Khan. Co-authors from the Prion Research Center at the College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, Colorado State University, are Glenn C. Telling, Ph.D.; and Edward Hoover, D.V.M., Ph.D.

The Eyes have it? Iowa researchers study retinal scans as early detection method for mad cow disease

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New research from Iowa State University shows that a fatal neurological disease in cows can be detected earlier by examining the animal’s retinas.

mad.cows.mother's.milkBovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), known more commonly as mad cow disease, is an untreatable neurodegenerative disorder caused by misfolded brain proteins known as prions. Classic BSE incubates for years before producers or veterinarians notice symptoms, usually discovered when the animal can no longer stand on its own.

But Heather Greenlee, an associate professor of biomedical sciences in Iowa State’s College of Veterinary Medicine, said studying the retinas of cattle can identify infected animals up to 11 months before they show signs of illness.

“The retina is part of the central nervous system,” Greenlee said. “Essentially, it’s the part of the brain closest to the outside world, and we know the retina is changed in animals that have prion diseases.”

In collaboration with Justin Greenlee’s group at the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Animal Disease Center, she recently published findings in the peer-reviewed academic journal PLOS ONE. She began studying how the retina relates to prion diseases in 2006, and the experiments that led to her most recent publication began in 2010.

The experiments utilize electroretinography and optical coherence tomography, noninvasive technologies commonly used to assess the retina. Greenlee said cows infected with BSE showed marked changes in retinal function and thickness.

The results have implications for food safety, and Greenlee said the screening methods used in her research could be adopted for animals tagged for import or export as a means of identifying BSE sooner than conventional methods.

Greenlee said she’s also looking at how similar diseases in other species affect the retina. For instance, she’s conducting experiments to find out if retinal tissue may be a valid means of surveillance for chronic wasting disease in deer.

She said she isn’t ready to publish her results, but the data gathered so far looks promising.

The research also may contribute to faster diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease in humans, both of which are caused by proteins folding incorrectly.

“Our goal is to develop our understanding of the retina to monitor disease progression and to move diagnoses up earlier,” Greenlee said. “We think this research has the potential to improve diagnosis for a range of species and a range of diseases.”

Oh Canada: Finding source of BSE ‘a needle in a haystack’

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Canadian Agriculture Minister Gerry-what-Listeria-Ritz says figuring out how an Alberta cow was infected with BSE is like looking for a needle in a haystack.

ITALY-G8-G5-AGRICULTURE-FARMThe beef breeding cow was discovered last month on a farm near Edmonton and was born on a nearby farm.

Another cow born on the same farm in 2004 tested positive for bovine spongiform encephalopathy in 2010.

He says the feed system is also being checked to see if there’s any kind of “smoking gun.”

Ritz says a number of countries that have temporarily suspended imports of Canadian beef are being kept in the loop, but he points out they only account for about five per cent of Canada’s worldwide market.

Because trade is more important than safety.

So Ger, how effective is that ban on mammalian protein in ruminant feed? Got any proof?

Don’t worry, exports won’t be harmed: Another mad cow case in Canada

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Gotta wonder just how effective Canada’s ban on mammalian protein in ruminant feed is, given the number of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) cases there have been over the past decade.

ITALY-G8-G5-AGRICULTURE-FARMWhen there’s a BSE case, or a foodborne illness outbreak like Listeria in the $5.5 billion a year Maple Leaf Foods, government agencies fall over themselves to assure the public – and trading partners – that everything is fine.

Would the Canadian economy sink were it not for the agricultural behemoths? Probably.

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency says little more than a week passed from the time the most recent case of mad cow disease was first suspected to when it was confirmed and national trading partners were notified.

A timeline of the case at an Alberta farm has been released on the agency’s website.

The website says a private veterinarian took samples on February 4 at the undisclosed farm and submitted them to a provincial lab.

It says they were tested on February 6 and the lab recorded a “non-negative” test result.

The lab repeated the test the following day with the same finding and reported the case to the CFIA, where the agency conducted its own test in Lethbridge, Alta, to confirm the result.

The CFIA says it started gathering information on the animal’s herd on Tuesday, officially confirmed the case on Wednesday and posted the case to its website and notified Canada’s trading partners on Thursday.

Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz said Friday that the infected animal was not born on the farm where it was discovered.

Ritz also said the discovery won’t affect Canada’s international beef trade because it won’t change the county’s controlled BSE risk status from the World Organization for Animal Health. He said Canada has stayed below international protocols that allow for up to a dozen BSE cases a year.

Norway finds ‘probable’ case of mad cow disease

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A second positive test for bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) on a 15-year-old cow reinforced suspicions that it had mad cow disease, the Norwegian Veterinary Institute said.

mad.cows.mother's.milk“We have a likely and strong suspicion of a possible variant of BSE,” Bjørn Røthe Knudtsen of the Food and Safety Authority told public broadcaster NRK.

The authorities however said there was a distinction between the type of BSE caused by cows eating meat-based feed — banned in Europe since 2001 after the British epidemic — and an atypical version which has sporadically appeared in older cows in several European countries in recent years.

A definitive diagnosis can only be made by a European reference laboratory in Britain.

“We take this seriously and we are handling it as if our suspicion were confirmed,” Food and Safety Authority official Solfrid Aamdal said in a statement.

Mad cow disease cover-up? Mum exposed toxic beef conspiracy after son died in agony

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During his final lucid moments Andrew Black looked up at his mother with violet eyes and begged her: “Find out who did this to me.”

Three years earlier, Andrew was a ­promising radio and TV producer, but by the time he died in his mother’s arms he was bedbound, blind and unable to remember anything before his illness.

mad.cows.mother's.milkAndrew would this week have celebrated his 30th birthday.

Instead he was killed by vCJD – the human form of mad cow disease BSE – when he was just 24 years old.

Mum Christine Lord vowed to honour her son’s dying wish, channelling her grief into a five-year investigation to uncover what the Government knew about BSE and when.

Her findings exposing an apparent cover up are published this week in her book, Who Killed My Son?

Christine says: “Watching Andrew die was the worst pain I have ever experienced in my life and it never goes away. It will be with me to the end of my days.

“You don’t get over losing a child to something as horrendous as that.

Documents showed the ­Government was warned to cull cattle as early as 1988 amid fears BSE could spread to and kill humans.

Meanwhile sources, many of whom were too scared to speak out publicly, told ­Christine infected cattle were smuggled into abattoirs at night.

And scientists in the know began boycotting beef during the late 1980s – even though the Government was still telling the public it was safe to eat.

One abattoir worker revealed infected cattle were delivered late at night to be turned into mechanically recovered meat which made its way into all kinds of food.

“One time they even had dead animals arriving in yellow sacks with radioactive signs on them,” says Christine.

Yet fears about the spread of BSE and the threat to humans emerged years before the public was warned.

Christine found official documents on BSE dating back to 1986, which she gave to the gummer.burger.kidDaily Mirror.

They are marked “confidential” as investigators ­recommended “playing it low key.”

Experts warned the Government there was “a real possibility that doing nothing could prove extremely costly”.

Yet ­officials were reluctant to cull cattle to contain the disease because of the cost.

The then Minister of Agriculture John Gummer even appeared on TV in 1990 feeding a beefburger to his daughter.

It was only in 1996 that the Government finally confirmed the risk to humans – after victims were already struck down.

Mad cows and Canada – happy anniversary

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Bad things seem to happen around the Victoria Day long weekend in Canada, known up there as May 2-4, because beer is sold in cases of 24 bottles, and Queen Victoria’s birthday was actually on May 24, 1819, although the long weekend in May to celebrate the start of summer – when youngsters insist on camping and it’s freezing and wet – falls on the Monday either on or before May 24.

Memorial Day in the U.S. is the last Monday in May.

On May 20, 2003, Canadian officials reported that a single case of BSE was diagnosed in Alberta. The eight-year old cow had been condemned at slaughter, was sent for rendering and did not enter the food chain. Although an isolated case, Canada was no longer free of homegrown Mad Cow Disease.

Mad Cow Disease or bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) is a chronic degenerative illness that affects the central nervous system of cattle. It is part of a family of rare diseases whose different forms affect different species of animals.

As the elementary school year wound down in June, 2003, in Ontario, Canada, the school three of my daughters attended had a barbeque for students, staff and parents.

The earlier discovery of BSE in Canada was of concern to some parents and school officials, so a note was sent home to parents, assuring them that the hamburgers and hot dogs to be consumed came from a supplier of so-called natural, beef and was therefore safe from BSE.

Leaving aside the scientific validity of such a statement (it’s not), the concerns about a potentially catastrophic, poorly understood risk, while completely valid, can also mask the concerns, biases and threats presented by less-exotic food-related risks.

At this particular BBQ, several of the well-meaning volunteer cooks were observed to handle the raw, natural hamburger patties with tongs that were then used to place re-heated wieners into hot dog buns, possibly cross-contaminating the wieners with any number of pathogenic microorganisms such as E. coli O157:H7, salmonella or listeria, and subsequently served to parents and children.

In terms of food safety, the observed practices represented a far greater risk; sure, mad cow disease, with all its unknowns, is bad, but with all the attention being paid to the hypothetical risks associated with BSE and genetically-engineered foods, many of the consumers whose confidence is vital to the food business are being distracted from the basics.

The efforts exerted by farmers, processors, retailers and consumers to ensure safe food are greater than ever. Yet the public discourse is increasingly focused on hypothetical food-related risks, which makes great barroom chatter, but does little to alleviate the suffering like that experienced by the 56 high school seniors in Ontario stricken around the same time with E. coli O157:H7 and were more rightly more concerned about future plans and making an impression on their date.

Oh, and unlike every other country that has discovered BSE, consumption of beef actually increased. While price discounts, advertising, and promotional statements from various social actors about the safety of Canadian beef probably contributed to the sales increase, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency was completely transparent, publicly showcasing — in the form of daily press conferences lead by Canada’s chief veterinarian, Dr. Brian Evans — a vigilant, proactive regulatory system, while acknowledging the likelihood that the disease was not limited to just one animal. In essence, Dr. Evans and his team provided daily updates that said, this is what we know, this is what we don’t know, and this is what we’re doing to find out more. And when we find out more, you will hear it from us first. Transparency, along with efforts to demonstrable that actions match words, is the best way to enhance consumer confidence.

May 20, 2003, was also the day Justin Kastner successfully defended his PhD under my supervision at the University of Guelph. Kastner got on faculty at Kansas State, arranged for me to visit in fall 2005, I met a girl, got a job offer, and am still in Kansas. That wasn’t a bad thing. I will write about other bad Victoria Day stuff tomorrow.